Sekirei: Hunted
by revan79
Summary: This is a what if story. What if the Sekirei didn't have ships on earth, what if there were more of them in the universe, a lot more, and what if they were more violent in their culture. Here's what I'd imagine it'd be like. Eternal Disclaimer I own nothing.
1. Chapter 1

**All right here's the deal. **

**I've had this idea bouncing around my head for a while and I had to get it out there so here it is. **

**Depending on the reviews and responses it may or may not become a full story. **

**Anyways let me know what you think.**

Sekirei: Hunted

Tokyo was nothing more than a mass field of rubble and crumbling structures. Craters dotted the landscape creating massive sinkholes maybe a quarter of a mile deep at the most and a mile wide at the most. The skyscrapers that once rose above all still towered overhead but chunks of the buildings were missing and throughout the landscape human skeletons cluttered the area.

The sky was a dark rolling grey mass and it seemed ready to pour at any moment. In the distance to the north of Tokyo glittered a mass of structures, the mass of structures seemed to glow green and several small things seemed to flutter about the city. The areas around Tokyo seemed abandoned and the bridges leading out were destroyed and floating on at the bottom of the rivers the once spanned.

In the city though a lone figure marched down an alley with nary a sound, the figure was dressed in a large camouflaged trench coat and a gas mask was secured to their face, the hood of the trench coat was up obscuring the figures head. The figures hands bore a pair of fingerless black and grey gloves and in the hands was a bolt action rifle with a scope attached to the top, the rifle itself was wrapped in grey strips of cloth. The figure had a pair of black pants with a lot of pockets on; the pants were a patchwork of black and grey scraps, on the feet were a pair of boots. On the figures back was a decent sized backpack meant for hiking.

As the figure walked through the alley it paused before pressing itself against the right wall and kept a dumpster in front of it. Peaking over the dumpster the figure watched as a ship of alien like design passed slightly above the street. The craft had two wings on either side with jet engines at the ends of said wings; the main hull ended towards the back with a ramp for people to enter or exit from, the aircraft had a tail that extended behind the hull with a rudder at the end. At the head of the craft a cockpit sat though it was covered by a frosted colored roof preventing the figure from seeing inside. Cannon of some sort sat below the nose of the aircraft.

The craft roared above the street and the figure leaned back against the wall while it flipped the safety off of the rifle. The figure reached into their cloak and pulled out a hand grenade and let the sling the rifle was attached to hold the rifle steady. After a few seconds the figure glanced at the street and noticed it was empty and sighed before stowing the grenade away and flicking the safety back on and crouching low to the ground to move towards the street slowly.

Once at the mouth of the alley the figure looked both left and right and saw the craft in the sky heading in the opposite direction. The figure stood up straight and walked into the street and jogged towards a building that was left standing. The building was a three story apartment complex made of brick and mortar with steel reinforcing the walls, the bricks were a reddish color and the front door of the complex was a dull grey color.

The figure entered the building and closed the door behind him quietly. The inside of the building was as run down as the rest of the outside world and the figure took it all in before walking down the hall and went down a set of stairs left of an old elevator shaft. At the bottom of the stairs was a steel door and the figure went to the door before inserting a key into the lock of the door and turning it, opening the door the figure pushed it and entered inside. The figure closed the door with a loud _thud! _The figure flipped a light switch turning the lights on and revealing the room to its eyes.

The room was plain except for the large amount of books in a corner next to a bed along with several boxes of munitions in an open closet. In the back left corner was an old military cot, at the foot of the cot was a large stack of books. On the right wall was an open closet with munitions and coats of various kinds, a few pairs of shoes also stood next to the closet, on the far left wall was a bulletin board with pictures and articles dotting it, also there was a heavy steel door with bolts and locks of every kind.

In the back wall a hallway led to a bathroom. The figure sighed before setting the backpack down and walked to the bed and set the rifle down on it carefully before sitting next to it and pulling its hood down and removed the gas mask after a moment revealing a male face. The person was a young teenager boy with grey hair that looked to once be black but had changed either with age, stress, or a combination of the two. He had grey colored eyes and a small scar was stretched across his cheek, the person removed the trench coat revealing a regular Military combat jacket underneath with a white shirt underneath that.

The man took the coat and draped it over the foot of the bed and slowly took off the boots on his feet that were coated in a layer of mud and other substances. Once off the man stood up and scooted the boots slightly under the cot before moving to the bulletin board and looking at the articles. The articles were mostly pictures of ships in the skies above different cities. At first it had been peaceful, the alien ships had arrived and the question of whether humanity had been alone had been answered.

Then the ships attacked and decimated cities and armies, planes couldn't reach the ships and the slow genocide against humanity carried on. The articles pictures shifted to scenes of lasers raining down from the sky, cities like LA, Berlin, New York, Moscow, and London were left in ruins. Then came the actual ground forces, the beings on the ships were humanoid at first glance but were anything but human, they had powers unlike whatever humanity had ever seen except from cartoons, manga, and comics.

From there humanity entered the triple digits in terms of population. The few remaining humans were hunted down and captured for some reason or another. The figure's eyes danced over to the top left of the board where a picture of an older woman with almost white hair with strands of black in it stood with two children. The first child was a young girl wrapped in a pink blanket and the second child was a young boy maybe eight with black hair and grey eyes like the older woman, he stood and smiled at the camera.

The figure sighed before walking to the bed and lying down and stared at the ceiling, the figure just stared for a few moments before pulling a little pendant meant for medical analysis, on the back was an inscription. _'Minato Sahashi, blood type A +, no allergies' _the now named Minato played with the necklace before letting it drop to his chest.

Minato reached into his pocket and withdrew a photograph that was folded up. Unfolding the rather creased paper it revealed a picture identical to the one on the bulletin board. Minato placed a finger on the photo and traced the outline of the two women in the picture. "Okāsan, Imōto where are you?" He whispered to himself before folding the picture back up and stowing it away in his pocket.

Minato laid there on the bed and contemplated what had happened. He had born a few years before the aliens arrived and the war happened, if you call it a war, his sister was born a year before the war. When it had started they were safe considering they lived in a rather small town but eventually like everyone they had to run. They had reached a refugee camp and after a few nights there they were attacked.

The air strikes came from the sky the sources unseen and had vaporized a third of the large group before anyone had an idea as to what was happening. He had been separated from his family in the camp and hadn't been able to find them, from there he wandered about and tried to live on his own and search for the rest of his family, he absolutely refused to believe they were dead. When the aliens had come down he had watched entire swaths of people be cut down by the aliens, he had done his best to avoid them but he had encountered several.

After a time when he began to see less and less people he had seen the Aliens drag people off to their ships and take them to the cities like the one North of Tokyo, the cities sprung up all around the world at least one city near the old remains of the capitals and large cities like Leningrad, New York , and Munich, he had tried to find out what had happened but every time he got within a mile of the perimeter Sekirei came out of the city and attempted to capture him.

Finally he resigned himself to just staying in Tokyo a mere fifteen miles from the alien community. Though it was getting a little harder to live in the city with the ever growing patrols and occasional group of aliens that walked around the city before going back after a day or so, he had studied the groups from afar, preferably with a sniper scope, and he had observed something odd. The groups were made up of usually one adult and a group of younger aliens that looked to be teenagers to eight year olds, it reminded him of a field trip like what he used to do in school before the war.

Despite being able to avoid the aliens there were other dangers, rabid dogs, wolves from the country side, animals escaped from the zoos, and the occasional monstrosity that was a result of exposure to too much radiation when humanity finally decided to unleash the weapons of mass destruction. Minato had thought it'd take generations for monstrosities like the ones he'd seen to appear but they appeared only seven years after the fallout.

Minato sighed and sat up and pulled his rifle close to him and began to clean it, setting the parts down on the bed, the rifle was something he had come across inside of a house. The rifle was an antique Kar98k, but it could put down just about anything and the shells were easier to find than other bullets. The eight millimeter shells were powerful enough to take down a bear, Minato had found one that escaped from the zoo and had tried to eat but Minato had put a bullet into its head effectively killing it.

Minato took the bolt out of the rifle before pulling a gun cleaning kit out from under the cot and proceeded to maintain the rifle. Minato had learned how to clean and maintain the rifle from a man he had met when he was just separated from his family and said man had been a soldier. Both of them were rather lost and the old soldier took him under his wing and helped Minato survive and prosper before passing away from a sickness. Minato had buried the man in the middle of a forest during a cold and unforgiving winter that had managed to worsen the soldier's sickness.

Minato finished the cleaning and started to piece the rifle back together. After the old soldier had passed away Minato had taken to searching for his family all throughout Japan and had found himself witness to the aliens first coming off their ships. At first Minato had thought they were prisoners then they started to wield elements like nothing and move faster than a car normally could. All these aliens differed from one another and dressed strangely almost like cosplay strange.

Finally once the rifle was back together Minato began to rewrap the weapon in the grey strips of cloth. After seeing the aliens first hand he had snuck away before heading to Tokyo to see how the city had fared and scrounge what he could from the city. He had found it abandoned and mostly destroyed with a few exceptions, after a few days he had seen a glow from the north and decided it was strange enough to garner his attention. So he had made a weeklong trip due to the amount of air traffic the aliens had in the area. Once he was within a mile or two of the city and atop a hill he had seen the sprawling vastness of the structures along with the quarter of a mile high wall complete with giant ominous glowing gate of doom.

Then the gate had risen and from the gate came a group of six people, five women and one man, all of the women were dressed in a tight black leather top, a miniskirt and stockings, and over the shoulders was a grey haori with the aliens 'crest' for lack of a better term. The male of the group was dressed up in black pants and a long sleeved shirt of the same color. The shirt was open in the front, stopping just a few inches below his solar plexus, with crisscrossing bands of leather forming an 'X'. The sleeves near his shoulders had a single band around them. Sitting almost lazily on his waist was a belt that looked more like an accessory than an actually functioning one. Three of the females carried swords as did the sole male of the group.

Minato finished the wrapping around the rifle and set the rifle near the head of the bed, leaning against the wall, and pulled out a dagger a little more than a foot in length and began to admire it before pulling out a wet stone and sharpening it. The group of aliens had been relentless in their pursuit and several times Minato had encounters with them. They had played a game of cat and mouse all the way back to the city where the odds turned in Minato's favor due to knowledge of the landscape and the extra equipment lying about the city.

Minato stopped sharpening the knife and stowed it away back in his sheath before pulling out a revolver and began to disassemble the six shooter. He had managed to drive them off but not before the purple haired leader of the group and stabbed him in the abdomen and left him for dead. He had managed to survive and just as the aliens were about to board the ship that had come to take them to the city, Minato struck.

Minato flipped the cylinder of the pistol back into place and pointed it at a certain point with his left eye closed. Minato had put an eight millimeter rifle round through the purple haired aliens' right shoulder and had clipped her lung. After that he had fled deeper into the city with the aliens trying in vain to try and find him until a building dropped on top of him and he had slipped away and hopefully they thought he was dead. He had eluded them and had counted it as a victory to himself. The purple haired one was their leader and was stronger than all the rest possibly put together, the only reason she hadn't been able to dodge the bullet was because she was distracted by her comrades' antics.

Minato frowned and put the pistol back in its holster at his right hip, he began to take off all the holsters before lying in bed. There had been one thing that had confused him. The aliens had spoken near perfect Japanese and all throughout the chase had kept on going on about finding their '_Ashikabi' _whatever the hell it was it seemed important to them and so it became important to Minato.

Minato closed his eyes and sighed before opening them and going to turn the lights off and moved back to lying down on the bed. Whatever the hell an Ashikabi was it was valuable to the aliens and so it was worth destroying. He had resolved himself to finding out what an Ashikabi was but could never find out what it was.

Minato clenched his fist and slowly relaxed before going to sleep. _'Wherever you are Okāsan, Imōto, I promise I'll find you and I'll destroy any and all Sekirei that gets in the way of me and my goal.' _Minato promised before going to sleep.

**At****Shin shuto**

**Northern half of the City.**

The city to the north of Tokyo was alive and busy with Sekirei going back and forth from jobs and the like. Though in the quiet northern part of the city a girl sat in a place called Izumo Inn. The girl had black hair and steel grey eyes. She wore a school uniform that was a brown tannish color with a red plaid color skirt. She stood in front of a Mirror and at the edges of the mirror were a few pictures of people. Most notably a picture with an older woman with almost white hair with strands of black in it stood with two children. The first child was a young girl wrapped in a pink blanket and the second child was a young boy maybe eight with black hair and grey eyes like the older woman, he stood and smiled at the camera.

The girl sighed and moved away from the mirror in her decently sized room. The Inn had a kitchen for everyone's use as well as a washroom. Her room had a futon rolled out on the ground and a dresser in the right corner with a mirror in the opposite corner. The room had a window that was covered with black blinds. The girl sighed and made to the door and opened it to see a young boy there ready to knock.

The boy had grey almost white hair with grey eyes and if he were to be dressed in the right clothes he could've been mistaken for a girl. The boy blushed slightly and the girl stared at him before smiling slightly. "Shina-kun, what are you doing here?" The girl asked and the boy blushed. "Ah, Miya-san has requested you down at the dinner table." The girl nodded and walked down the hallway lined with several doors.

The boy noticed the girl's posture and saw she was slouched and slightly depressed. "Yukari-sama what's wrong?" Shina asked and the now named Yukari looked at him and shook her head before smiling. "Nothing at all, nothing at all." The girl said in a slightly bitter tone that betrayed her words. Shina flinched and they finally arrived at the long dinner table. Already several figures were there.

The first woman had long, dark brown hair, brown eyes and a well-developed body figure. She was wearing a pink/violet belly top with a golden star on the front and a golden "10" on the back. For the lower part she had on a pair Capri jeans. The second was a woman with long red hair with side plaits and appeared unfashionable dressed, wearing detached sleeves that resembled a cheongsam and a pair of glasses.

The third woman had long black hair and slightly slanted eyes and wore a very short purple Chinese dress which showed her cleavage and belly button. In her right hand was a decent sized Sake bottle. The next was a woman with silver hair and the same colored eyes and wore a long black coat with a mask around her neck along with a pair of black pants and black shoes meant more for an outing to a fancy party or some sort.

The next woman looked more like a teenager with pink hair in a side ponytail with two daisy clips, and wore a kimono-like shirt with one sleeve missing, she was also a A cup which was incomparable to the others in the room. The one next to her was also a teenager who's bandage-wrapped form is covered by a tattered dark kimono, disheveled grey hair, a studded choker, and narrow eyes; giving her a wicked, daunting appearance.

The next woman seemed to give off an air of bloodlust; she wore a tight black leather top, a miniskirt and stockings, over the shoulders was a grey haori. She had long light gray hair tied in a ponytail and gray narrow eyes. She had bags under her eyes, giving her an exhausted look. The woman next to the woman with bloodlust gave off the opposite more of and happy carefree air. She wore the same as the last woman but with a pair of black fighting gloves on her hands. She had brown eyes and a brown hair. Her hair was hime-styled; it had short bangs, chin-length strands surrounding her head and framing her face, a single antenna-like strand that hung just above her head and hip-length hair at the nape of her neck.

The last person was a slender yet shapely woman with fair-skin and brown eyes. She had waist-length purple hair with shorter bangs in a hime-style. She wore the traditional attire of a miko that consisted of a purple hakama, a white haori with a sash-like belt, wooden sandals and a white ribbon to partially hold her hair in place. The people at the table sat and chatted with each other but stopped when Yukari had entered the room with Shiina in tow.

Yukari took a seat at the end of the table opposite of the purple haired lady. "Ah, good to see you Yukari-Chan." The lady in the Chinese dress stated before taking a sip of alcohol from the bottle in her hands. Yukari nodded to the woman. "I still see you're drinking Kazehana-san." Yukari said and Kazehana smirked. "You should try some and try to relax, alcohol can do miracles." The one now named Kazehana said and Yukari snorted.

"Oh, what's the matter Yukari-san?" The pink haired teenager asked Yukari and Yukari looked at her. "None of your business washboard." Yukari spoke and the pink haired girl growled. "What was that pervert?" Yukari snorted, "You heard me Benitsubasa, damn washboard." Yukari said and the now named Benitsubasa growled. "You're going to pay for that pervert."

A quiet chuckle came from the grey haired Goth girl next to Benitsubasa and Benitsubasa leveled a glare at her. "What's so funny Haihane?" Benitsubasa asked and Haihane chuckled a bit more. "You always will be a wash board. Even Yukari admits it." Benitsubasa gained a tick mark on her head and the red headed woman with glasses began to chuckle weirdly like a perverted old man would. "Oh, looks like Yukari-tan could be developing a mean streak." She muttered and her glasses glinted in the light.

"Matsu," Yukari said turning her gaze to the woman and Matsu smiled. "Yes Yukari-tan?" She asked and Yukari kept up her stare. "Shut up." Matsu looked at her and fake pouted. "Oh, Yukari-tan is so mean." The grey haired woman with the pony tail chuckled lightly. "Oh, my. so angry Yuka-chan." Yukari looked at her and snorted. "Like you're one to talk Karasuba." The now named Karasuba smirked at her with her eyes crinkling up and her face bearing an almost fox like smile.

"Yukari-san," The brown haired woman next to Karasuba started. "Please don't be so angry." Yukari looked at her and snorted. "I'll feel however the damn well I want to feel, Yume." Yume hung her head and sighed. "So angry." The woman with the purple hair stared at Yukari and sighed. "Yukari-san it isn-"That was as far as she got before Yukari snapped. "Miya, shove it." Yukari snapped and glared at the purple haired woman now known as Miya, said woman sighed.

"Yukari-san, I called you down here not for you to scold us but to remind you that you are to go along with the trip into the old city in a few days." Miya spoke and Yukari seemed to just get angrier. "You are to accompany the trip and educate the new arrivals and we shall be accompanying you as well." It seemed that Yukari was at her limit when she clenched her fist and blood dribbled out of her hand and onto the once clean table.

"Do you understand Yukari-san?" Miya asked in a little bit more hardened tone. Yukari hesitated and seemed to want to shout at the woman. "I asked, do you understand." Miya asked and this time it seemed to be more of an order, Yukari nodded not trusting her voice. Rising up Yukari seemed to relax a little. "If that is all I think I'll be taking my leave." Yukari spoke and Shiina rose up to follow her but a glare from the corner of Yukari's eyes made the boy flinch and return to his seat. Yukari left the people in the room to talk amongst themselves.

When the girl was out of sight the rest of the room seemed to deflate except for Karasuba. "Well, that went as well as expected." Matsu said as she sighed, the rest of the room nodded. "What is the girls' problem?" Benitsubasa and Haihane and Shiina nodded alongside her. "Well I'd be a little upset if I had to watch as the rest of my race get killed and was torn from my family and then forced to live with the people who killed off more than ninety percent of your race. Wouldn't you?" Kazehana asked and Benitsubasa sighed and hung her head.

"Yeah I guess." She replied and Kazehana smiled a small bitter smile. "And let's not forget she's more or less been forced to be a wife to Shiina so she's going to have to carry one of our kind at some point so not only does she have to live with us she has to bear our kinds children." Haihane set her elbow on the table and rested her head on her palm. "Yeah that would suck. Anyways have there been any interesting developments?" She asked the table and the rest shook their heads.

Miya sighed before rubbing her right shoulder, Matsu noticed this and sighed. "Is it still acting up?" She asked and Miya sighed as the rest of the table turned their attention to her. "What's bothering you?" Haihane asked genuinely curious. "Miya took a bullet to the shoulder a few years ago and it left a decent sized scar." Karasuba stated and Haihane looked shocked as did the other two younger people.

"How?" Was the only word Benitsubasa could get out. "Well, it started out as a normal day here in the city, just doing our own thing when we got a call that there was possibly a mile maybe two from the wall." Kazehana stated and the rest of the table listened. "We went out and sure enough there was one and when we got close enough we found he wasn't all that friendly. He started taking pot shots at us a mile out before displacing and moving towards the city. We followed and for three days we kept on chasing him and he kept eluding us and leaving some rather nasty surprises."

Matsu lifted her top a little and it showed a patch of skin on her abdomen was scarred like it was burned. "Matsu walked near a booby trap and got caught in its blast." She told them as she lowered her top. "Yes anyway," Kazehana continued. "We kept up the chase and eventually we made it to the city and that's when we found out how tenacious this human really was." Kazehana muttered and Karasuba grinned wider. "I still wish we'd found him." She stated with an almost unnoticeable dusting of pink on her cheeks.

"Yeah, I think more than a few of us were reacting to him." Matsu stated and a little bit of pink showed on her cheeks. Haihane and Benitsubasa were shocked to see most if not all of the people have pink on their cheeks and blushing. "Well, when we kept getting near him he'd keep bring out new surprises to attempt to take us out. He had everything from landmines, stakes, pit falls, and on top of that he'd use the rubble as cover to snipe at us from long range."

Kazehana stated and took a drink from her bottle. "And after a while we cornered him." She said and Haihane interrupted her. "So why isn't he Ashikabi if you guys were reacting to him?" She asked and Miya sighed. "That would be my fault actually." She said and looked down as if ashamed. "I cornered him and we fought and eventually I stabbed him in the abdomen and I thought he was dead and so I left him." She said and rubbed her shoulder.

"I learned there and then to always make sure your target is dead." Haihane looked around questioningly and the rest seemed to have a little hope. "As we were about to board our ship to go to the city a shot rang out and hit Miya as she talked with us. Turns out the human was still alive and kicking and still ready to fight us to the bitter end." Kazehana stated and sighed. "We couldn't find him afterwards and so we went home but not before Miya here admitted something surprising."

Turning towards the purple haired woman the people at the table were treated to the sight of her blushing. "I think it was the fact that he would never give up and was still ready to fight but something in him made me react." She stated and Benitsubasa's head hit the table. "What I wouldn't give to see him and then make him mine." Kazehana said before taking a swig of her drink. "If you did manage to get winged by him you'd have to worry about him slipping a knife in between your ribs as you slept and then him blowing up the other Sekirei winged to him."

Karasuba had stated that with a smile on her face. "I would've enjoyed breaking him and then making sure he was obedient first then we could have so much fun in the tournaments." She said and at the mention of the tournament the others sagged. The tournaments were fights between Sekirei who had Ashikabi for money, property, and other valuables. Typically they were held in the destroyed human cities and occasionally they got so violent Sekirei started to die. This was all okay to the Sekirei as they needed to keep up in skills and all and they enjoyed the opportunity to study other Sekirei's techniques and skills.

"Well, damn sounds like this guy was a bit much." The girl with the number 10 on her back said and Yume nodded. "I know Uzume-san but I believe with the power of love anyone can overcome their hatred." The now named Uzume sighed, and the last person not named face palmed before speaking. "Yume-san, no disrespect or anything but love doesn't fix everything." Yume looked at the woman and glared. "Homura-san don't you believe in love, it's our fate as Sekirei to find our Ashikabi's, our most cherished person, and love them." Homura sighed before throwing her hands up.

"You know what I give up." Karasuba nodded at Homura. "Glad you can join the club of _'I give up trying to change Yume's view'_ club." Yume pouted at Karasuba. "Karasuba-Chan I know we can find your one true love, we just have to wait!" Karasuba smiled at her and patted her head. "I'm not sure if I should be grateful or annoyed but keep on trying and tell me when you find me my one true love and then we'll talk."

"All right that's enough for now," Miya spoke up and the rest of the table was silenced quickly in fear of the woman's wrath. "Now all of you get ready for bed tomorrow we train as a unit. We can't have ourselves getting rusty now can we. We may not have that many missions due to the war ending but that doesn't mean we are going to get out of shape." The Sekirei at the table nodded and prepared to get up.

"You guys hear about the new tournament happening in the city?" Uzume asked as they were about to leave, almost all the Sekirei paused before Kazehana sighed sadly. "Yeah we heard. It's so wrong though, I mean leaving an eight year old girl in the city and then having Sekirei trying to get to her and whosever Sekirei gets her gets to wing her." Uzume sighed and nodded.

"Yeah I feel the same but we aren't allowed to intervene, but she has the home court advantage with her powers creating that forest. Also did you hear about that scrapped number, poor thing, I feel sorry for her. She can't find her Ashikabi and now she's been thrown into the city until an Ashikabi decides he or she wants her or she's killed."

Yume sighed and looked down. "I hope she can find peace before her end but with how Scrapped numbers usually are I doubt she will and she's viewed as inferior by everyone so I doubt she'll be claimed the more likely thing to happen is she'll be killed by the elements, or worse." There was a sad moment of silence among the Sekirei before Matsu surprisingly broke it. "We can only hope that someone finds her, or a quick and painless death."

With that sad thought in their heads the Sekirei all left the dining room and to their separate rooms to sleep. Once Miya arrived in her room she sighed before undressing as she made her way to a body length mirror and stood in front of it dressed in only her undergarments. Her body was almost flawless with light pale skin that seemed to glow with the moonlight coming in from the window.

Her body had very faint scars on it but the only way to really know they were there was if you felt them, well all except one. The one you could obviously tell was there was a circular wound near her right shoulder and just above where her right lung was. The one wound that would always be with her was one of her greatest follies and her happiest moments. The folly was that she was shot and wounded by a human, in the war a few Sekirei had fallen but none as powerful as her. It was also her greatest moment because she had been reacting to the man she had chased and was sad by his apparent death but had pushed through it without much effort.

Imagine her surprise that while she and her comrades chatted, and she reminisced about killing the person she reacted to, a bullet had gone right through her shoulder with a splash of blood and bone. She had been spun around and from her position she saw him and her eyes had widened as she caught sight of his face, which none of them had seen before, and saw he was alive and she hadn't killed him.

She had saw the determination and defiance in his eyes as he glared at her as if mocking her with his continued existence as if shouting out he would never bend to her will, never would he bow before her kinds law and never would he allow himself to become nothing more than a tool. From that look on his face and in his eyes she had felt warmth spread through her body, as if her entire being had decided to prove him otherwise, to make him hers.

So from there she had thought about almost nothing but finding him again, she refused to believe a simple building collapsing could kill him nor did the others, the human was far too tenacious for that, and making him hers. So for the few months she had been ordered to rest she had prepared herself and her team to find the human and have him wing them before bring him back to the city, then she had received four new people to look after as well as a new Ashikabi and her single Sekirei, it had thrown a wrench into her plans but she found a way around it.

When Yukari would go to the city to tour the city with the newly arrived Sekirei Miya and her squad would take rotation in searching for the man and hopefully they would find him. It was a long shot she knew that but she would do anything to feel that heat inside her again and to see those defiant eyes looking into hers.

Now it was only a few days until they could go out and look for him and she was excited to say the least. Miya touched the scar and traced it lightly before dropping her hand and getting dressed for bed, she had to get ready to find that man and drag him back with her, after hitting him over the head a few times of course.

**So let me know what you think of it in the reviews. **


	2. Sekirei: Hunted New day and new People

**Tokyo city**

**The next morning**

Minato awoke that morning with barely a sound, from years of practice drilled into his head, and almost immediately started his daily rituals. He brushed his teeth and washed his face before getting dressed in a pair of black pants with many pockets and a pair of black boots that were lace less and went up just below his knees. On his top he wore a white sleeveless shirt, a black t shirt over that and a military camouflaged jacket over that, the jacket was covered with his trench coat.

Winter was fast approaching and the temperatures were colder than normal, so Minato was wrapping himself up and preparing the best he could. After heating up a MRE, or Meal ready to eat, and devouring it Minato threw on his gun holsters and knife sheathes. Once all his weapons were in place he donned his knapsack, in case he found anything useful or interesting, and picked up his rifle and turned the lights off before heading out into the desolate city.

Once he reached the door to the outside Minato reached towards his left hip where his gas mask was fastened and donned it, once it was secured to his face he reached into one of his many pants pockets and pulled out a makeshift scarf made of greens, black, and brown colors, it was cut from one of the military camouflaged nets, and wrapped it around his neck. Once the scarf was secure Minato drew up his hood and walked out the door and checked both ways for any sign of the Sekirei or their airships. He spotted one more towards the west portion of the city; once he was sure no one would see him he went down the street towards the botanical gardens to investigate the strange occurrences there.

Almost overnight a large rainforest had sprung up and several Sekirei had patrolled the area and that would've made most humans wary of the area and avoid it completely, but Minato was curious and wanted to know what was so important in there so he was going to get a closer look if he could. He'd have to cut his way through the most of the city, a portion of the sewers and then the park to remain hidden; none of the Sekirei went to the sewers or the park due to the amount of wild animals and other things in there. All in all he was looking at maybe a day and a half of travel if he was lucky, which he never was, so more like a three day trip.

Minato made his way down the deserted streets of the city and towards the park. The plants had seemed to reclaim the city within a matter of months after humanity abandoned the city. Trees were sprouting out of buildings and grass poked through pavement, vines curled around building and wild plants and animals wandered about without a care.

Minato sighed as he clambered through a buildings window in order to avoid going through a river in the middle of the street. Skeletons were often times inside of cars, or buildings, staying right where they had died. The Sekirei had often times used chemical warfare to clean out humanity from the cracks and crevices of earth, though the odd thing was that the gas only killed certain people, most fell over dead while others were fine. Hence the reason for his gas mask, the aliens themselves had a taste of humanities own chemical warfare and had quickly whipped out rebreathers, which looked like an oxygen mask, for themselves.

Minato jumped on the edge of a floor, or what was left of it; there was no center of the floor just a hole leading to the basement where several pointy spikes of various elements laid in wait for new victims. Minato edged himself across the room with his back pressed against the wall until he reached the next room and slid into it.

The Sekirei were amazing in the fact of their powers, they could wield elements like there was nothing to it, they could slice a tank in half with a flick of their sword, a single Sekirei could bring buildings down with a well-placed powerful punch. They could jump at most twenty or thirty stories depending on their powers.

Minato edged out of the buildings door and back onto the street before jumping down from a ledge made of raised asphalt and onto the lower platforms of the street. The street was raised up and down from where something either impacted or an earth type Sekirei had decided to let loose, wild grass and other plants sprung up all around, the grass went up to his waist and he could effectively hide in it with how much of the stuff was around, a stream ran from the way he came with the ledges of the raised street making impromptu waterfalls.

Minato snuck through the grass crouched so his head was just above the grass and he could see anything coming his way. As he had lived life abroad he had watched the Sekirei and he had seen that they didn't have two powers instead they seemed restricted to just one class. A Sekirei that wielded water couldn't use ice just because it was water related, but that didn't mean two Sekirei couldn't combine their attacks into one massive powerful strike.

Minato stood near the ledge of a street that was suspended over one of the many large craters that littered the city, the ledge of the street was anchored by a rather large tree, off in the distance he could see Sekirei aircraft flying across the sky near the rather large jungle that sprung up despite it being late fall or rather early winter. Minato turned away from the tree and made his way down the destroyed and up heaved road again.

He had personally seen a pair of Sekirei, one fire the other water, combine attacks and he had watched as the steam created from the combination attack literally melt the skin off of people as they ran. Minato had to run from the two after he had seen the attack, due to the fact that he started to vomit as the people screamed in agony, and he had hid in an old sewer and headed into the sewers to lose them and he had succeeded. Though they had literally flushed him out with a bout of superheated steam that had boiled his entire backside rendering him inactive for nearly a month except for the most basic of things like eating and drinking.

Minato dropped down from the ledge of the finally part of the street and onto a slope that started out as green grass then it lead down to the concrete embankment, then to the concrete made channel. The bridge that spanned the once roaring river, now little more than a six inch tall creek, was snapped in half and the ends of the two half's met at the bottom of the channel. Since the invasion of the Sekirei, and their subsequent landing, they had destroyed humanities damns and waterways that were inland, once roaring rivers now little more than trickles. They occasionally missed one damn or spillway which was why there were several streams and creeks in one area and not another.

Minato slid down the concrete slope and landed on the bottom without a scratch before making his way across the concrete channel, Minato walked through the slow moving currents and he noticed something odd on the opposite bank of the river. Once he reached the opposite side Minato saw what was so odd and he stiffened.

The object was a nearly six foot long lance barely missing the six foot mark by about two maybe three inches. The lance was a blood red in color, on the shaft of the lance was a crest of a bird with a ying yang symbol under it with two tomes flanking the ying yang's sides. It was a Sekirei crest and so the weapon most likely belonged to a Sekirei but the question was where was this Sekirei and just why did they leave it out.

Minato walked forward and let his hand touch the weapon before pulling it back slowly and looking around. Minato turned towards the weapon and decided to take it deciding that a Sekirei was less likely to survive if their primary weapon was gone, with that decided Minato readied his rifle with the red lance tucked to his back Minato looked down the channel and saw an entrance to the sewers where the metal grate had been ripped apart, small blood trails led to the entrance, always a bad sign, but with no other entrance in sight for at least a mile and not willing to risk the chances of a Sekirei patrol Minato braced himself before walking towards it.

Once at the entrance to the sewer Minato slung the rifle across his back and pulled out his sidearm, a 44 caliber revolver, the hand cannon was just about the only small arms pistol capable of taking anything down anymore, a small flash light was attached to the under barrel by duct tape. Minato flicked the flashlight on and walked into the darkness of the sewer.

It took about only twenty steps before it became pitch black, his flashlight was the only light he had at the moment and it could only do so much. The walls of the sewer were padded down with moss, mold, fungus, and bloodstains. Several human skeletons laid strewn about and torn apart with teeth marks on some of the bones. Minato took one look at the teeth marks and skeletons before pulling the hammer back on his pistol, and flipping the safety off.

With his weapon at the ready he felt a bit more safe, just a little, and he kept going down the winding sewers, going down one hallway and then down a tunnel and then down even more almost identical hallways had a way of screwing up your sense of direction. Then as he went down what he felt like the thousandth tunnel he heard _it._ A small ticking sound or tapping sound, like when someone takes a pen and taps it against a metal plate, the sound came again from behind Minato and he paused and behind his gas mask his eyes were wide.

The sound came again and Minato turned behind him slowly and leveled his gun down the hallway, there was nothing there. The sound got louder and louder and faster and he felt his hairs stand on end. Nothing came and then it just stopped, Minato kept his gun leveled at the hallway and when nothing still happened he relaxed slightly and just as he was about to turn around a string of liquid dripped down from above right in front of his face.

Slowly looking up Minato found himself face to face with a bug like monster, it had six legs and several glowing yellow eyes of various sizes, its' hide was covered in a tan colored carapace and had plates of the armor overlaying one another, two jagged fangs jutted upwards in front of its face attached to two mandibles each one with rows of sharp jagged teeth that could give a shark a run for its money. The thing that separated it from just a normal oversized spider like in a video game was the tail, a long one and a half meter tail was attached to it and at the end was a wicked looking stinger.

Minato raised his gun and pointed it at the monster but didn't fire, he didn't need to. The light of the flashlight hit the bug and once it came into contact with it the bugs body started to smoke and the creature howled in pain and fell from the metal grate sealing. It flopped on the ground and tried to escape but Minato kept the light on it and the creature continued to smoke, slowly the skin began to turn red and the bug began to flip and flop until it was on its back.

Minato squeezed the trigger on his revolver and with a resounding echoing _Boom! _The creature's softer unarmored underbelly exploded in a shower of red entrails. The creature still writhed about so Minato unloaded another of slugs into the bug making more gore fly about. The bug's legs stilled and Minato lowered his gun before turning back towards the way he was heading and pointing the gun ahead, he quickly wished he hadn't.

**Xx Line Break xX**

**At Shin shuto**

**Northern half of the City.**

Yukari woke up from her sleep with a yawn and stretching of limbs. She looked around and realized where she was and as soon as she did she scowled. She was in her room in Izumo inn; she was alone on her futon as usual. Shiina was forbidden from sleeping with her due to the fact she was, less than happy with the Sekirei and wouldn't hesitate to try and off him in the night, so they left her alone in a room so she wouldn't try to kill him as he slept.

She slowly got up and began to get herself dressed in her school uniform, even if humanity was extinct or on the brink of it she still had school truly this was hell, when she had first been put on her _'__probation' _as it was called she had been extremely angry when she learned she had to go to school with the _things, _they may have looked human but they were anything but human, that had killed off most of her race.

Though there were some interesting developments that she learned in the school. First off was that this wasn't the first time the Sekirei attempted something like this, there had been other races apparently that had met the same fate as humanity. The other thing was that children born in the Sekirei society had about a twenty percent chance to become an Ashikabi, that and Sekirei could breed with one another, though the birth rates were extremely low and more often than not ended up an Ashikabi, but with a low birth rate and the lack of powers in them the Sekirei preferred to subjugate others to produce powerful heirs.

Yukari looked at herself in the mirror and sighed. She wore the same outfit she wore when she had to talk with the others, it was the only one she had, bags were beginning to show underneath her eyes and little red veins were showing in her eyes themselves. Sighing she moved to grab her schoolbag and opened the door revealing Shiina there just about to knock.

Yukari glared at him as if willing him to spontaneously combust which was entirely possible. The boy shrunk in on himself as if he wished to disappear and for the girls glare to stop, Yukari became satisfied when the boy shrunk in on himself. She turned to the stairs leading down and went down them with Shiina following her. Downstairs the rest of the houses occupants were awake and in Yukari's opinion, unluckily, alive.

Yukari walked past them and to the door without so much as a word to them, Shiina gave a small wave and a soft _goodbye, _but that was it. Miya sat at the head of the table the others soon joining her, food was on the table and they all began to dig in. "That girl, no, that entire species." Miya muttered to herself. Karasuba nodded and swallowed a piece of food before speaking. "It's amazing, out of the dozens of races we've subjugated I've never seen a race as tenacious, hateful, and overall resistant as humans."

Karasuba shuddered at the end of her sentence. "I love 'em" She said while she licked her lips before taking a bite out of one of the eggs on her plate. Matsu at her place at the table nodded as well. "Truly they are rather resistant. Every time our race has ever conquered another race it usually only takes three years to subjugate them completely. These humans though withstood eight years of constant assault then another three of being assimilated to our society and yet they still resist. "

Homura nodded her head after taking a sip of a red colored liquid in her glass. "They have a passion that few races seem to have. They're stubborn and overall like to be in control and seem to hate to be told what to do." Uzume smiled as she leaned back with her hands supporting her. "Well enough about that, hey Yume-san want to go shopping with me?" She asked the other brunette who nodded happily. "Oi, you mind if we join?" Benitsubasa asked with Haihane giving a curious glance as well. Uzume nodded and finished off her drink before standing up already dressed in her Capri pants and number ten shirt.

"Sure but only if you've got your own money, I'm not a charity case." Haihane, Benitsubasa, and Yume stood up to join her with Kazehana joining them. "I need to stock up on my collection." She stated while holding up a Sake bottle. "Fine, I don't care. Let's just get going." And with that last statement Uzume, Yume, Kazehana, Benitsubasa, and Haihane all left. Miya shook her head while she sipped her tea and Matsu left to…do whatever she did. Karasuba just sat at her seat smiling like she always did until she pulled her sword out and went to her room.

"A entire house of crazy people is what I have," Miya muttered to her self. "Between the crazy homicidal sword wielding psychopath, the perverted technician, the shy school boy, and the possibly genocidal teenager I have no idea how it could get any worse." Miya would later find those words coming back to bite her in the ass.

**Xx Line Break xX**

Minato dashed down the hallways of the sewer like a mad man. The winding corridors had managed to confuse him and that got him lost as he was chased. As he ran down the sewer corridors a multitude of sounds followed him, screeches, scratching, tapping, and loud howls seemed to follow him and hound him. Minato increased his pace as the sounds seemed to become louder, he pulled the hammer on the pistol back and briefly turned his head and fired a bullet into the hall behind him. A dull orange glow greeted his sight briefly before he turned his head back towards his front in time to take a left at a split in the hallways.

Minato looked ahead of him and saw a steel door ahead of him, the door was ajar and looked in sturdy condition, so he increased his speed and dashed as fast as he could he made it past the door and slammed it closed. He knew he couldn't stand against the monsters following him, but he had nothing to fight them with in the tight closed quarters of the sewer corridors. Then he noticed two steel bars on either side of the door with enough space to fit between them and the door keeping it from opening, thinking quickly Minato reached behind himself and towards his back and pulled the red Sekirei lance that had been wedged between his back and his pack and pulled it off his back and put it in the spaces between the wall and the two steel pieces effectively blocking the door.

Stepping back Minato pulled up his pistol and pointed it at the door. Nothing happened for a moment before something slammed into the door with a loud _boom _Minato flinched back for a moment and pulled the hammer on the pistol back again and waited as whatever was on the other side slammed into the door again, this time it made a dent in the door but the lance held it back.

A dull orange glow radiated from under the door and Minato could see something pacing from the shadows projected from under the door. Minato held his breath and kept his gun pointed at the door as whatever was on the other side slammed into the door repeatedly until after what seemed an eternity the dull orange glow disappeared and the sounds of something running down the hall in the opposite direction of the door were heard. Minato sighed when he could no longer hear anything behind the door. He slowly relaxed the hammer back into place and pressed the top of the gun against his head with the barrel pointed towards the ceiling. Minato closed his eyes and listened as his raging heartbeat slowed until it was normal, exhaling Minato turned around to look around the area he was in.

It was a large circular room with several boxes lying about and a ladder in the center of the room led up to what Minato guessed was a manhole cover. There were several hallways that lead in all different directions and each one had the steel door but were all closed. The boxes that were strewn about looked to be munition crates and to the side there were four stacked together, two on the left to on the right, to make a makeshift table.

But what really caught his attention was the corpses strewn about, more like skeletons really, there were maybe half a dozen in total and each one was dressed in a military uniform with the Japanese flag embroidered on the shoulders, The skeletons were broken up with pieces of uniforms hanging on the bones. The military fatigues were gray and black with the digital camouflage pattern. Minato looked around the room before walking towards the nearest skeleton and bent down to inspect it.

There were several tears and rips in the uniform that looked to be made by whatever killed the owner of the uniform. The bones of the skeleton looked to be cracked in half and there were teeth marks on the bones that suggested whatever killed him began to eat him either while he was alive or dead. Minato's best guess was that some thing had came through the door he came in from and killed these men and then ate them.

Luckily the dead soldiers holsters, weapons, and ammo pouches were intact, something Minato planned to take advantage of. Before he began to scavenge off of the dead skeletons he searched them for dog tags and if he found them he took them. Once he was done searching the corpses Minato set the gathered objects on the makeshift table and evaluated his findings. He had found about two unhurt weapon holsters, a SCK/Minebea 9mm Pistol with three mags, three type 67 fragmentation grenades, surprisingly there were also five M18 claymores, two M18 smoke grenades, a MP5 sub machine gun with about a clip and a half of ammunition, a M1014 shotgun with a fold-able stock and about twenty rounds on a shell belt, four hissatsu knives that the Japanese Military were fond of, and finally a M4 carbine with three clips of 5.56×45mm ammunition.

Overall Minato felt overwhelmingly happy with the find and he hadn't even opened the crates yet. Minato set his pistol on the table with the other weapons along with his rifle. Picking up the pistol Minato opened the cylinder and emptied the shells into his gloved hand to observe how much he had left. In total he had spent five of the six rounds. Minato put the remaining pistol round in the cylinder and put the empty casings into a pocket. Digging around in his numerous pockets Minato pulled out the contents and revealed it to be a handful of 44 caliber shells. Minato filled up the rest of the cylinders slots before setting the cylinder back into place.

Minato flicked the light off on his pistol and holstered it, then he reached to his belt and pulled two flares off of it. Activating the red torches Minato tossed them about the room and removed his pack from his back and set it on the table. Minato stored the pistol in the bottom of the pack when he was sure it was empty, he set the two pistol holsters he found on top of the pistol. Reaching into a different pouch on his right leg Minato withdrew a roll of gray colored cloth and began wrapping the clips of ammunition up in the cloth so they wouldn't rattle when he moved.

Minato took the MP5 sub machine gun and set it on the side of his pack so that it was within reach if he needed a quick weapon. Minato did the same to the shotgun except he folded the stock up so it was compact enough to easily move with, the shells for the gun were set across Minato's chest by the shell belt. Minato took the carbines ammunition and set it in his military jackets pockets, the carbine was set between his back and his pack since he really didn't have any room to carry many more weapons. The grenades were set carefully wrapped up in gray cloth inside his trench coats inner pockets. The claymores joined the spare ammunition in his pack along with the knives.

Once he was done packing Minato noticed his flares were about to start dying so he popped the cap of another flare and tossed it in the room. Minato searched the boxes that were strewn about and found them to be loaded with explosives of all kinds along with ammo. Minato couldn't carry all of it so he instead deigned to remember the location of the cache of weapons and other assorted goodies. Minato picked up his Kar98 and strapped it to his chest since there was no room on his back and carefully began to make his assent up the ladder to the manhole cover.

It took a little effort but Minato managed to move the metal covering and poked his head out to look for any Sekirei or other dangerous things and once he was certain there was nothing he climbed from the sewers. Once out of the manhole Minato slid the cover back into place and once it was secure he glanced about to ascertain his location. He was at a fork in the road with two roads in front and one in the back, the buildings were along the lines of business fronts and less like residential buildings.

He looked for a street sign and once he found the name, which was _Kanmon-odori_, Minato pulled out a map of Tokyo and searched for the location, when he found it he marked it on the map with a small red pencil. He also looked to see how far he was from the new jungle and nearly groaned when he realized he still had a rather long walk ahead of him.

Unslinging his rifle from across his chest Minato stood up and started to walk towards the direction of the gardens. Instead of taking the main roads Minato chose to take the back alleys, side streets, and through the houses to get to his destination. He was three hours into his walk when he noticed the sky begin to darken signaling the time to hide. At that moment he found himself in the middle of a park, the trees were bare of their leaves and shadows seemed to dance about.

Minato looked to his left and recognized that he was near a safe house and decide to make his way there, the other option was to stay out fight off hordes of things and most likely become a midnight snack to a monster. He jogged lightly to the buildings until he reached a clearing where he found a rather odd sight.

There was a woman sitting on the ground, knees pulled to her chest and arms wrapped around her knees. She had short, light brown hair, her clothes were made up of a white short sleeved shirt and white pants. Both were torn in places and stained with blood, dirt, mud, and grime. He face was covered by her knees so he couldn't get that good of a look at her.

Minato was curious and wary of her, he though he was alone in the city, yet here stood someone or sat...whatever. She could've been a Sekirei, but they were usually so obvious, flaunting their abilities or their weapons, their clothes were always nice, clean, and odd. So Minato carefully decided on his course of action and slowly moved towards the woman, no sound came from his movements and he only stopped when he was directly in front of her.

Slowly and still without a sound he set the rifles butt against his shoulder and pointed the barrel at her head. When he was comfortable he flipped the safety off and readied to shoot if she was hostile. When the click of the safety sounded the woman stiffened and slowly looked up with a blank depressed look, and half lidded sleepy like eyes. Minato stiffened when he saw her forehead, a tattoo of the Sekirei crest on her forehead in crimson colored ink and what that meant was a mystery for Minato.

It could mean she was an outcast from the other Sekirei, for what he couldn't tell. She could've been an escaped human, did that mean that the Sekirei branded humans they captured with the tattoo. There were a plethora of ideas of what the symbol meant yet Minato couldn't decide which one was the right one. The look in her eyes set him more off guard, the dead look reminded him of the people he had seen who had lost everything to them and then they just decided to curl up in a corner and die.

The woman looked at Minato while he studied her and was quite stunned by his appearance. She had never seen someone dressed like this and with the layers of clothing on them she couldn't tell if they were man or woman. Though the weapon in their hands almost made her speak up, almost being key word. She considered stopping this person but she stopped herself. She was broken they said, worthless, a disappointment, this person would most likely bring her to their master or kill her, maybe even ridicule her.

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?" The person asked in a tone that displayed their lack of tolerance for any wrong answers from her. "Ah... I am...broken...disappointment, embarrassment. I came here to die." She spoke in a slow tone and Minato just stared at her behind his mask. "Why?" He asked her in a softer voice. "Ah... I was left to die." She stated to him and Minato couldn't decide how to respond.

"Who left you to die, did the Sekirei do this to you? Are you an escapee from the Sekirei?" He finally decided on a response and the woman spoke up again in her slow tone. "Ah... yes the Sekirei left me to die. I did run away." She spoke with her customary pause, and with that Minato lowered his rifles barrel slightly. Then a howl cut through the air and Minato stilled and looked about before returning his attention to the woman before him.

"Look, I don't know what happened to you, or how fucked up you are, but if we don't get moving now we are both going to die here. Do you understand?" Minato asked and the woman nodded her head slowly. "Ah...yes." She seemed to have that pause as a verbal tick of some sort Minato decided. "Then let's move, if we don't get to my safe house soon we'll both be a midnight snack to something." He said while holding out his left hand.

The woman looked at the offered hand in confusion and spoke again. "But...I am broken...useless?" She spoke questioningly and Minato sighed behind his mask. "Look, normally I'd never take a chance like this. But if you know how to get into the Sekirei city then you have more knowledge on their capabilities, defenses, habits, and resources than I do. And right now I need all the information I can get, so get up and let's move."

The woman glanced at the hand and gently lifted up her own and latched on and Minato pulled her up to her feet without much trouble. "Good now we need to move, keep quiet, no stopping unless we get into a fight and avoid being spotted. Just follow my lead." Minato spoke before letting go of her hand and then walking towards the buildings again.

The woman obediently followed along without a sound and mimicked him almost precisely. "By the way," Minato spoke as they reached the edge of the park and the street. He spotted the building they needed to get to across the street. "I never did get your name." He continued as he crossed the street the woman following without much of a sound.

They reached the two story apartment building and entered before shutting the door again. "Ah...my name is Akitsu." The now named Akitsu spoke and she followed Minato down the stairs of the building and to the basement where she saw Minato open a large steel door and motioned for her to follow him as he entered.

She entered and Minato flipped the lights on before shutting the door and barricading it with the steel bars and bolts. Akitsu studied the room and saw that there was a bathroom in the back that was separated from the rest of the room by a wall of plywood and a makeshift wooden door that was open. There was a cot in the back left corner of the room, a pile of plastic containers in the right corner and a full body length mirror leaning on the left wall.

Minato passed by Akitsu and set his rifle against the cement wall near the cot, and set his pack on the cot along with all the guns, explosives, knives, and his holsters. He set his trench coat on the ground along with his military jacket. He then removed his scarf and finally his gas mask revealing his face to her for the first time. "Well, I guess it's my turn for introductions." He spoke catching Akitsu's attention.

Akitsu blushed when she caught sight of his face. She found that his hair and eye colors suited each other and the scar that went across his left cheek seemed to give him the experienced fighter look and the without the jacket and the coat she could see that his body was muscled and was like a swimmers or an athletes body, made for running, stamina, and endurance.

"My name is Sahashi Minato and I welcome you to my humble abode." He said while giving a gentlemanly bow that was sarcastic and fake as all hell. He rose and looked her in the eye. "Now that those are over with perhaps you'd like to tell me why you have a Sekirei crest tattooed on your forehead?"

**Hi there sorry about the long wait I just couldn't figure out what to write fro this story but here it is. Good, bad give me a review and tell me what I could do to make this story better. Thanks for reading, Ja ne! **


	3. Questions

**Okay so here's the next chapter and thanks for all the reviews, keep the reviews coming, I'll try to answer all your questions if I can. So without further ado here's the next chapter.**

Minato and Akitsu sat opposite of each other in the basement where they took shelter for the night. Akitsu had her face set in her normal emotionless expression and Minato was just staring at her from his position across from her only two feet of space separating them. "So let me get this straight?" Minato asked the rhetorical question. "You are a Sekirei who can't find their Ashikabi, who is a person that is most likely to give you a powerful child. You were kicked out of your family because of this and were branded with that tattoo, then sent out here in the hopes you'd die or someone would accept you as nothing more than a slave."

"Am I right so far?" Minato asked and Akitsu gave a small almost unnoticeable nod of her head. "Well then I think I know what I need to do." Minato muttered before leaning forward suddenly making Akitsu flinch somewhat. Minato's hands came up to her neck holding something there was a distinctive _click _and then Minato pulled back with a cylinder the size of a double A battery held in his left hand.

Akitsu looked at her throat where Minato's hands had went and found a black collar like object around, the makeshift collar was made of several cords that hooked into a small capsule with a red glowing light. "That is a modified det cord." Minato spoke as he held the cylinder object in his hand up, he flicked his thumb at the top and revealed the top of the cylinder to be movable, revealing a small red button. "I modified it so it isn't set on a timer but is remote detonated so try anything and your brains will be decorating the ceiling. Am I clear?" Minato asked and Akitsu nodded her head.

"Ah….I understand." Akitsu said with her usual pause. "Good, now let's play a game. The game is called I ask a question and you answer truthfully, you don't and I blow your head off." Minato sat down cross-legged; his pistol was propped up on his right knee with the barrel pointed at Akitsu and his left hand held the detonator to Akitsu's makeshift collar. "Now first question, where do you take the captured humans?" Minato asked and Akitsu hesitated for a moment.

"Ah…to the cities." Minato stared at her in a deadpan and motioned in a _continue on _motion with his gun. "Ah…they take the captured species to processing centers and hold them there until a Sekirei reacts to them. If they do have a Sekirei react to them they are taken to a building or barracks where they are put on a probation period under watch by a disciplinary squad." Minato blinked at the statement seeing as the woman tended to answer in five word or less sentences.

"These disciplinary squads what are they and how big is a squad usually?" Minato asked and Akitsu paused. "Ah… the squads are the soldiers, enforcers and police to Sekirei." She paused again and swallowed, Minato sighed. "How long ago did you eat and drink?" Minato asked her and Akitsu looked down. Minato nearly jumped when he heard and felt a loud rumbling. He looked around trying to find out just what that was when his eyes landed on Akitsu and the snow woman was blushing slightly. Minato sighed and pulled a box he had under the cot next to him.

Minato ripped the box open and pulled out a box of crackers and two bottle of water and tossed one of the bottles of water to the woman along with a roll of crackers. "Eat; if you're hungry it'll get harder to remember and I need every little bit of information in that head of yours." Akitsu paused before taking the bottle of water and opening it, then in a matter of seconds it was gone along with a third of the crackers in her roll. Minato set the gun on the cold concrete floor but kept the detonator in his hand while he drank from his bottle of water.

"Now, who make up these disciplinary squads?" Minato asked and Akitsu paused in her demolishing of her crackers. "Ah… Normally there are two, three or occasionally four frontline fighters and one brain type Sekirei." Minato contemplated that for a moment before voicing his next question. "Is there any way to identify the squads, uniforms, colors, weapons?" Akitsu paused as she put a cracker to her lips. "Ah…yes, they wear a grey haori, a black leather top with a miniskirt and black stockings." That was unusually descriptive for the normally slow speaking woman.

That description also rang some bells in Minato's head. Then it came to him, the Sekirei that had chased him and the purple haired one that had shoved her blade through his gut. "Is there a disciplinary squad with a purple haired woman with a katana, a grey haired woman that is always smiling with a sword, a red head with glasses, and a dark haired woman with control over the wind?" At his question Akitsu stiffened and turned her head to look at Minato in confusion.

"I'll take that reaction as a yes." Minato sighed as he popped another cracker into his mouth. "Next question, how many squads are there in the city to the north?" Akitsu managed to swallow the lump in her throat. "Ah…three." Minato paused and then began swearing under his breath. "Ah…how do you know _that_ disciplinary squad?"

Minato picked up his pistol and pointed it at her head. "I'm the one asking the questions here my dear, now" Minato said. "Who are the members on that squad?" Akitsu showed no fear at the weapon being pointed at the middle of her forehead; instead she only displayed her usual emotionless attitude. "Ah…the leader of that squad is Miya Asama, the one with the purple hair. The red head as you called her is the brain type of the group, her name is Matsu Nikos. The one with the control over wind is Kazehana Kimoto. The grey haired one is Karasuba Himura." Minato nodded his head before relaxing the hammer on his pistol back into place.

"There were two others when I saw them one was a guy the other was a brown haired woman with powers that seemed to let her use plasma." Akitsu nodded her head and couldn't help but wonder just how Minato knew these people. "Ah… the brown haired one was most likely Yume Matsuoka and the male of the group was most likely Mutsu Yamamoto. The male, Mutsu recently left the squad." Minato was a little relieved that the male of the squad would be gone; he had been a pain to loose when fleeing seeing as he'd rearrange sections of rock and seemingly turn everything into a maze.

Then he narrowed his eyes and looked back to Akitsu who was finishing her crackers. "You seem very forthcoming for a prisoner." He said and slowly pulled the hammer back on his pistol. "There a reason why?" He asked and Akitsu looked down for a moment seeming to contemplate something before looking up at Minato. "I have been cast from my home, stripped of my family name, I have nothing. Yet you took me in and gave me something to eat. Even if I am just a source of information to you, I still am of some value to you, I still hold worth. I pledge myself to your service for the rest of my days, Minato-sama." Akitsu spoke without her usual pause and with a voice full of conviction and at the end she had bowed to Minato, Minato was staring like a deer caught in the headlights.

_'__What the fuck?' _Minato thought to himself even as he stared at her owlishly. "Okaaaay then." Minato said while he tried to scoot further away from the woman still bowing to him. Akitsu slowly rose up to sit in a Seiza position while staring at Minato intently. "Ah….Master is something wrong?" She asked in her usual monotone and Minato was still trying to figure out what in the hell was going on. They're supposed to be mortal enemies and yet she's acting like his slave, add on top of that that he had her life in his hands and she seems so calm about it.

"Ah…master is everything all right?" She asked like she hadn't just called him master and pledged her service to him. "What the hell?" Minato murmured to himself and Akitsu studied him for a second slightly tipping her head to the side as if asking _what_? "What do you mean by pledging yourself to me for the rest of your days and what the hell is up with calling me Master?"

Akitsu looked at Minato her depressed sleepy expression on her face. "Ah… I wish for you to become my Master, my Ashikabi if only in words, I cannot be winged. You… are nice; you gave me something to eat while others would gladly watch me starve to death." Minato meanwhile was dismissing all she was saying in favor of focusing on one line she had said. _'__You…are nice,' _she thought he was nice, even after he collared her with a high yield explosive device, threatened her, and overall was prepared to put a bullet in her head and call It a day and yet she thought he was kind.

_'__Seriously what the hell happened to her to make her think I was nice?' _Minato asked himself silently and he looked back to Akitsu and then to the roll of crackers that was reduced to mere crumbs. He sighed before setting his pistol beside him and digging around in the box where he got the crackers from some more. He pulled out his hand revealing it to be holding a bag of jerky, he tossed the bag to Akitsu and it landed in her lap and she stared at it for a moment before looking up at him. "Eat it, you're probably still hungry." As if to confirm it her stomach let loose a loud roar sounding like a raging bear or monster of some sort.

Akitsu blushed and gently took the bag and opened it before taking a piece of jerky and looking at it for a moment before sticking it in her mouth and chewing on it for about a minute or two then swallowing and then the bag's contents seemed to disappear and Minato stared in despair at the bag. "Well…there went that bag."

"Ah…Thank you." Akitsu said quietly and Minato looked at her while he set the pistol back on his lap and began munching on his half roll of crackers. "Yes well, if your stomach continued to rage like it was we would've had the things that go bump in the night knocking on my doorstep and frankly I don't like people knocking on my front door." Minato took a sip from his water and looked over at Akitsu as she seemed content to just sit in her uncomfortable stance and he sighed.

"Alright, next question." He said and Akitsu looked up at her master expectantly. "How is it that you think I'm nice besides those previous mentioned points. So far all I've done is collar you, threatened you, and….yeah that's about it. Those things, eh, Ashikabi couldn't have been meaner than me, right?" He asked and Akitsu sagged and shook her head slightly.

"Ah…no, scrapped numbers like me, are considered defective and damaged goods. We….are the outcasts and lepers of Sekirei, I would've been seen as nothing more than an object, something to play with then throw away at their leisure." _'__Okay that sounds pretty bad, but still who's to say I won't do the same?' _Minato thought to himself. "Ah…if I wasn't thrown away I most likely would've been treated as if I did not exist, you acknowledge me."

Minato stared at her for a moment before hanging his head and muttering under his breath softly, even with her enhanced Sekirei hearing Akitsu couldn't make out a word of his muttering, before Minato looked back at her. "Alright I'll tell you what I'm going to do." He said as he stood up and moved to the cot and sat on it. "First off, since you have information I need I can't kill you, you may still have uses to me, and you know where I hide and that I am alive so I can't let you go. So you're going to stay with me and if I so much as think you're going to betray me I'll take your head off."

Akitsu nodded her head. "Ah…understood master." She stated with her usual monotone. "Second of all, I need to know if you can fight and if your Sekirei powers are intact." At this Akitsu nodded her head and held out her hand palm facing upward and an icicle formed out of thin air hovering just over her palm. "Ah…yes I am combat ready." She lowered her palm and the icicle hovered for a moment before cracking and then dissipating into nothing. "Good, well now we know what to expect from you. Alright third and final issue, your clothes." Akitsu looked at her once pristine white clothes and noted the tears, rips, and stains.

"You need new clothes since I plan on getting out of here first thing tomorrow, we'll be heading to the botanical gardens, I don't know what the hell is going on over there, but with the Sekirei crawling all over it, it can't be good." Minato stopped and turned to Akitsu and narrowed his eyes. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about it would you?" Akitsu paused and nodded her head. "Ah…yes. It's a tournament." Minato paused and looked at her questionably, Akitsu looked at her Masters face and seeing him wave his hand in a _go on _motion she continued.

"Ah…the Sekirei host tournaments in the destroyed cities on earth, and on other planets they are held in arenas or designated areas. The prizes vary from money, property, weapons, and sometimes other Sekirei whose families abandoned them, the tournaments are also used to rank Sekirei on their social status." Akitsu explained all of this and Minato looked a bit perturbed. "So, basically a battle royal between Sekirei?" Minato asked and Akitsu shook her head. "Ah…not always, the tournaments sometimes have objectives or they are as you called them 'battle royals', these objectives often times include the obtaining of an object or if a Sekirei is the prize the first group to get their Ashikabi to the Sekirei."

Minato sighed and shook his head. "Sounds like these Ashikabi hold more power than I thought." He said and this time Akitsu took the initiative to speak up. "Ah…no not really, whenever they go out into the outside world they must be accompanied by at least one of their Sekirei to keep them in check." Minato nodded his head at that, made sense making sure to keep potential trouble makers in check. "The money and weapons are more often than not are split between the winning Sekirei."

Akitsu continued on unimpeded. "When one becomes an Ashikabi they are taken to a…barracks," Akitsu seemed to think about the right word. "They are confined there unless accompanied by one of their Sekirei, if the Ashikabi is from a newly conquered race like your species," At this Minato's fingers found themselves gripping his pistols trigger guard. "They are put on a probationary term where they are kept separate from their Sekirei unless watched by a Sekirei not bonded to them so they may intervene if the Ashikabi attempts anything."

Minato nodded his head, seemed like a Sekirei version of child protective services to him, only allowing a parent who had trouble to be with their kid while under guard, he had to hand it to them the Sekirei really seemed to be cautious around the Ashikabi. "Well seems like your species might be smarter than I thought." Minato spoke and Akitsu stiffened before relaxing and nodding her head. "Ah….yes they are quite cautious." Minato nodded his head in agreement before another question entered his mind.

"Alright, this question has been bugging me for a long while now, how in the hell does your species speak Japanese so fluently?" Minato asked, as Akitsu opened her mouth to answer her stomach made itself known once again. Minato sighed before dragging the box of food to him and pulled out a chocolate bar and tossed it to her. "You are going to eat me out of house and home if this keeps up." Akitsu blushed but nonetheless opened up the chocolates package and began to eat it as well.

Swallowing a piece she decided to answer Minato's previous question. "Ah… we Sekirei have the ability to learn another language by just listening to around an hours' worth of constant chatter of it." Minato paused and looked at her oddly while she continued to munch on the chocolate bar. "So what you just need to listen to an hours' worth of conversation and you can automatically pick it up without any prior knowledge of it?" He asked and Akitsu paused mid bite for a moment before nodding and then resuming her destruction of the chocolate bar.

"Well, damn wish I could get something like that." Minato muttered to himself and Akitsu paused her eating and spoke up. "Ah…you can. The ability comes from the Nanites that reside in every Sekirei's brain." Minato paused and looked at her confused. "Wait you mean to tell me every Sekirei has a bunch of microscopic machines coursing through their bodies?" He asked and Akitsu nodded her head. "Then what if an EMP went off would that kill every Sekirei within range?" He asked a plan forming in his head already.

Akitsu shook her head no and Minato cursed. "Ah….no, but it would slow them down and cause them to be nauseous, if the EMP was close and powerful enough it could knock a Sekirei out." Minato pondered this for a moment and he was trying to decide what this information could do for him. On one hand if he every managed to find an EMP he could use it to knock out the city to the north and infiltrate it while the power was out and the Sekirei were nauseous and not as attentive as usual.

"Well it's more than I had before." Minato said and he looked over at Akitsu and tossed her another candy bar from the box. "Looks like you do know some interesting things." He said with a small smile on his face and Akitsu gained a slight dusting of pink on her cheeks and looked down at the candy bar in her lap. Her master hadn't hit her yet and had even given her a compliment and fed her as well, it was more than other scrapped numbers could hope for and she would guard her master with her life.

**Xx Line Break xX **

**Shin Shuto**

**Izumo inn **

Yukari entered Izumo inn with Shiina trailing behind her. She could hear the other Sekirei that bunked in the inn practicing in the back yard with each other. Uzume and Kazehana were enjoying a drink at the dinner table; Karasuba was parked on the couch sharpening her nodachi. Miya and the others were nowhere in sight so that must of meant they were the ones training in the backyard.

Yukari marched past all of the Sekirei in the inn without any greeting and walked straight to her room. School had been boring as usual with Sekirei propaganda, Sekirei history, Sekirei cooking, since she was to be the wife of a Sekirei the Sekirei thought she should start acting as a regular housewife. All through the day she had ignored everyone and instead focused upon other things, like wondering if she could kill Shiina with her pencil or if she could poison his food, well she had a creative mind and had found more than enough ways to off him if she could get the settings just right.

The schools classes and overall education might have been boring but there were a few interesting things she had seen and learned at school. Like the various races the Sekirei subjugated, the most surprising fact about the subjugated races was that they were almost exactly like humans appearance wise with a few alterations to their physiology due to their home world's environments. They had discussed about a dozen races so far, there were only three of the other races attending school, first was a race that called themselves gods but in all actuality resembled elves.

They looked like humans with pointed ears; they had proved to be very peaceful and docile and were all around pacifists. From the _gods_ home world came another race extremely similar to them only with longer ears, they called themselves demons and had a little more backbone compared to their shorter eared counterparts. The final race that also attended school along with the humans and Sekirei called themselves devils. They were also humanoid but also had something that made them different from humans and the other races, at first glance they looked like a normal human, their differing trait from humans was the fact that they had a pair of bat like wings hidden inside their back that could unfold from their back by slipping out of two almost invisible slits on their back.

Yukari had met a few at school and she might've liked them or been friends with them, but as it was she was a prisoner and they were with the wardens, and this city was her prison. Before Yukari knew it she was in her room, but she wasn't alone. Shiina shut the door behind him and faced Yukari with determination and hopefulness on his face. Yukari dropped her bag on the ground and turned to face him; her arms crossed across her chest and narrowed eyes. "What do you want?" She asked with a dangerous tone. Shiina gulped, he knew he wasn't supposed to be alone with her with no one around but he needed this.

Shiina sighed and looked her in the eyes. "I want to make a deal with you." He said and for a moment Yukari was still before she snorted. "And, what could I give you, and for that matter just what could you do for me….well besides fall over dead." At that Shiina flinched, it was no secret Yukari detested him to the point she would kill him in his sleep if given the chance, but no matter he had to get her help with this. "I need you to help me rescue my sister."

Whatever Yukari had expected it was not this. "What do you mean rescue your sister and for that matter why would I help rescue her?" She asked and Shiina for once didn't flinch or back down. "My sister, she's the prize that the tournament in the city is for. When we go on the trip to the city two days from now we can slip by the teachers and go to the jungle and get her out." He explained and Yukari glared at him. "Well I'll be damned." She said and chuckled softly.

"Looks like the alien is trying to tug my heart string." She laughed and Shiina sighed before continuing on. "And in return for helping me get my sister out of there I'll never touch without your permission, and I'll do whatever you say for the rest of the time we're together." That stopped Yukari's laughter and she glared at him and hissed out her next few words. "What did you say?" Shiina returned her gaze with one of pleading. "If you help me get my sister I'll never touch you or try to have sex with you without your permission and I'll follow your every order for the rest of my life."

Yukari seemed to mull it over for a moment. "So if I were to ask you to die would you kill yourself?" Yukari asked with a humorous voice. "No, if I did die you'd be taken back to the center where we bonded and you'd be given a different Sekirei." Yukari cursed and looked back to Shiina and seemed to consider his offer. "Well, that is a very tempting offer, and I always did want my own personal slave, looks like we have a deal _Shi-kun._" She said this with a smile all too similar to Karasuba and in a tone of voice very similar to Miya when she got upset at the breaking of the house rules.

Shiina gulped at her tone and the smile, but he stuck his hand out for a handshake to seal the deal and Yukari gripped his hand very hard and she shook it. Overall Shiina felt like he had made a deal with the devil and the price would be his soul, which with Yukari's hatred of him and his kind it very well could be. "Well, Shi-kun you should head downstairs before any of the others get curious as to where you are. After all I might just gut you like a fish if you stay much longer." Shiina gulped and ran out the door while Yukari chuckled behind him in an evil all most serial killer like tone.

_'__Yep definitely made a deal with the devil.' _Shiina thought to himself.


	4. Welcome to the jungle

**Tokyo City**

**The next Morning with Minato and Akitsu**

Minato and Akitsu were still in the basement and both were having a stare down between them, neither side was giving in. Minato had his right hand fingers on his pistol and his left hand gripped the detonator to Akitsu's explosive collar. He was sitting on the cot where he had been sitting all night they had spent the entire night talking about the Sekirei and he had to say he was impressed by her knowledge and willingness to share it.

Akitsu was sitting in the same Seiza position all night and a pile of food wrappers were setting to her left from all the food Minato had given her as a form of reward for her useful answers. She gave her master the best answers she could give to his questions he asked her, not once during the conversation had he struck her. Her hunger was satisfied finally and she loved the candy bars her master had in his possession, after he stopped questioning her he had resigned himself to just staring at her with his hand on his pistol.

That was how they spent a good four hours of the night; just staring at one another, Minato still didn't trust her all too much and refused to sleep with her in the room and without anyone to watch her while he slept. Call him paranoid but he preferred to keep his freedom and refused to become breeding stock for a bunch of aliens. As the stare down continued Minato and Akitsu's match was interrupted by a watch on Minato's wrist. Glancing at it he saw it was six in the morning, he looked at Akitsu and frowned at the clothes she was in.

She wasn't going to be blending in anytime soon if she wore those. So he sat up and Akitsu stared at him intently while he got up and stretched his back with several satisfying pops and cracks that made Minato release a sigh of relief. He holstered his pistol, but kept a hold on the detonator to her collar. He walked over to the plastic containers in the room and opened one up and reached inside retrieving some clothes. He tossed them to her and she let them fall into her lap.

She gently lifted them up and examined the articles of clothing chosen by her master. The clothes were a black long sleeve shirt, a grey colored jacket that seemed to be in a camouflaged pattern, a matching pair of pants, and a black scarf. She looked up at her master and noticed him set his bag from yesterday on the cot and start to take out everything inside of it. "Get dressed and then we'll get going." He said while he took one of the spare gun holsters and set it on his right hip and then put the Minebea 9mm Pistol in the holster, his revolver went into a shoulder holster.

Akitsu nodded her head and began to undress without a care in the world and then she slowly started to put on the clothes her master gave her. Minato meanwhile had taken all the weapons out of his pack and started to organize it so he could carry them all. The MP5 was placed inside one of his trench coats many pockets, the M1014 was strapped to the side of his pack and he had taken the shotgun shells and placed them in his military jackets pockets. The M4 carbine was wedged between his back and his pack with the rifles sling going across his chest. The knives were placed in various places all across his body.

The grenades also found a place inside his trench coat and the claymores were stored inside his pack. After putting on his jacket, coat, pack and boots he turned to see Akitsu putting on the clothes he gave her. He walked back to the boxes and grabbed a pair of socks and a pair of shoes and tossed them to her. "Put those on." He said before taking out two MRE's, one for him and another for her, he figured if she got hungry that her stomach would roar out and draw unwanted attention.

Once Akitsu had her shoes on and they both had eaten they headed out to the world, at the door separating them from the outside Minato donned his gas mask and his scarf, Akitsu delicately wrapped the scarf her master gave her around her neck and lower half of her face before pulling up the hood of her jacket. Minato looked around for any sign of activity and once he was satisfied there was nothing he walked out with Akitsu trailing behind him only a foot away. The morning air was chilly and a small layer of frost decorated everything, a low mist hovered above the ground. The sun was just rising and the sky was painted pretty colors.

They walked back into the park and Minato kept his finger near the trigger of the Kar98 rifle. Minato grabbed Akitsu by her sleeve and dragged her to his side. "Stay where I can see you." He hissed and Akitsu nodded her head, and they crouched in the tall grass and made their way towards the sprawling mass of trees. Several times Minato had heard the roar of Sekirei engines and had made them pause until the sound left.

It was around five in the afternoon when they finally reached the Jungles edge. The entire day was spent hiking through the park, parts of the city, through a marsh, and dodging Sekirei patrols. The place they were currently were at was inside of an apartment building that was overrun by vegetation and was missing chunks of it from where explosives had apparently struck it. They were on the second floor currently; Minato was at a window looking over the jungle with his rifle. Akitsu was standing to the side of the window hands clasped together and standing at attention.

The jungle was across the street from them with the street and the entry doors being their only obstacles. The vines and vegetation crawled over the steel gates and sprawled itself in every direction. The glass doors to the botanical gardens were covered in grime and dirty to the point you couldn't see through them, the walls of the botanical gardens weren't in much better condition. Only a few miles away a Sekirei craft was flying overhead and through his scope Minato could see several figures dash across the roof tops with almost blinding speed. Minato sighed and leaned out of sight to the left of the window, opposite of Akitsu.

"Seems like there's no way in without getting into a fight." Minato said and Akitsu nodded her head. "We'll find someplace to stay for the night and god willing; we'll find a way in tomorrow." Akitsu looked at her master and followed him as he made his way down the hall of the building to the stairs. Minato opened the doors to several rooms all throughout the building until he stopped at one that was on the fifth floor of the building.

The room was rundown with the bed in the corner of the room looking about to collapse in on itself, the walls were peeling, there were also large bloodstains decorating the walls of the room. Minato checked the apartment and found there was only the living room, a side kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroom connected to the bedroom. All in all it was just about the size of a student flat.

Akitsu followed Minato inside the flat and kept her eyes solely on Minato. Minato closed the door to the flat and found a piece of furniture, a chair, which was unbroken and propped it against the door and locked the door as well. "This isn't exactly one of my safe houses but it'll do for now." He muttered to himself before taking a seat against a wall with Akitsu placing herself opposite of him. Minato took off his pack and removed the M4 from his back propping both against the wall, he took his pack and removed a few items from it before pulling out a small tarp and set it down.

Once the tarp was laid down he set the items from the pack down on the tarp. The first item was a small propane stove. Minato turned the knob of the gas tank before lighting the fire with a match. Once the fire's intensity was to where he wanted it he pulled out a tin cup, setting the tin cup on the stove's top he pulled out a water bottle and poured the water into the cup. Akitsu watched all this with unblinking eyes, and wondered what her master was doing.

Once the water started to boil Minato retrieved two cups of Ramen noodles and poured the boiling water into the two cups of ramen gently. Once he was certain the ramen was ready he gave one cup to Akitsu and kept one for himself before breaking out two pairs of chopsticks giving one to Akitsu who looked at them curiously making Minato sigh. "You don't know how to use chopsticks do you?" He asked and Akitsu shook her head no.

Minato grabbed the chopsticks from her and handed her a fork. "Eat up, I don't want that monster of a stomach you have giving us away." Akitsu nodded and dug into the food quickly as did Minato. Soon both were full and somewhat happy. Minato was leaning against the wall and Akitsu was sitting Seiza across from him. Minato had his revolver lying on his lap, and he had removed his mask. Night had fallen and Minato could hear the creatures of the night roaming the city.

Howls, shrieks, roars, and cries of pain sounded out all over the city. Akitsu seemed to be nervous and kept glancing to the window Minato had covered with a dirty blanket from the bedroom of the flat. Minato was relaxing for a moment and felt calm when he stiffened. He slowly gripped his pistol with his right hand and pulled the hammer back slowly, Akitsu looked at her master as she heard the _click _that signified him readying his pistol. She saw him lean forward and turn off the stove top that had been heating the water inside the cup for tea. He was glancing at the door to the hallway all the while and he slowly raised his pistol to the door.

He kept the pistol leveled at the door and she looked towards the door and couldn't hear anything, she was about to question Minato when she heard a low growl and the sound of something passing by their door. She paused and stopped all movement as she listened to the low growl and snaps of whatever was on the other side of the door. She could hear the sound of heavy footfalls behind the door and she could tell whatever was on the other side had left after nearly a minute.

Minato released the hammer of his pistol back into its resting place before going back to leaning against the wall, releasing a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He looked at Akitsu and put a finger to his lips so as to keep her quiet. They both relaxed somewhat but still kept their guard up through the night, or at least Akitsu did. Minato, at around midnight, started to fall asleep due to sleep deprivation and all the work they had done that day. Moving through a destroyed city, avoiding enemy ships and patrols, and keeping an eye on a prisoner had been rather tiresome.

His eyes started to fall and he jerked back up a moment later. _'__No…I mustn't fall asleep.' _He thought to himself but it felt like something was trying to make him sleep. _'__Need…to…stay awake… need to keep a…eye on the Sekirei.'_ No matter what he thought or tried it was futile as his head lowered as he fell asleep.

**Xx Line Break xX**

Minato found himself in a jungle of some kind; he looked around confused as he didn't recognize anything. Lightning bugs flashed through the dark forest and when he looked up he could see the moon shining through the canopy. He spun around looking for anything that might tell him how he got here. He was still dressed in his clothes he fell asleep in, his gas mask was missing form his face and he felt uncomfortable.

Everything seemed translucent and certain colors seemed to glow while others seemed to just fade in and out of context. "Is this what someone feels like when their high?" He asked himself before shaking his head. "Alright what the hell is going on?" He got no reply before he sighed and placed both his hands on his face. "Great, so I'm alone in a jungle, no idea how I got here or where here even is, and I think I might be high." He paused for a moment before rubbing his temples. "And now I'm talking to myself." He paused as a small sound reached his ears; all movement he made was stilled as he waited for the noise. There it was!

It sounded like faint crying. It was coming from his right; looking towards that direction he saw that the noise led deeper into the jungle. Minato slowly removed his hands from his face and walked towards the noise, he didn't make a sound as he moved like usual. As he moved towards the crying sound he could have sworn that the jungle seemed to brighten. Then he reached a tree in the jungle, the tree was decent sized and the leaves of the tee glowed an emerald green.

But the tree wasn't what drew his attention; rather what was _in _the tree, sitting huddled in on themselves was a small blonde child. The child was most likely a girl based on the fact that they wore a white sundress. The child had long dirty blonde hair that was tied off near the end by a leaf green ribbon, he could hear faint sobs coming from the kid and he was wondering if they had any idea where they were.

"Hey," Minato called out and the kid stilled. "Gaki, you know where we are?" Minato asked and the kid in the tree turned towards him and he finally got a good look at the kids face. She had bright green eyes, like forest green, she looked like she eight maybe ten years old, and small tears were being rubbed away from her face by her arm. "What?" She asked and Minato sighed. "Do you. Or do you not. Know where we are?" Minato asked and spoke slow for the kid and the girl in the tree looked at him confused.

After a moment of no response Minato decided for a better approach. "Alright, do you want to tell me why you're up in a tree like a cornered cat?" The girl sniffled for a moment and then decided to speak up. "Ku-chan…Ku-chan was taken out to the scary park and told to stay here." She said and Minato guessed the kid was Ku-chan and she was talking about herself in the third person, not a good thing it was considered a sign of insanity. "Ku-chan didn't listen and explored the scary park and then some big, ugly monsters tried to hurt Ku-chan."

Minato was a bit surprised, the girl looked relatively unharmed, and still this was most likely a dream. "Then when the big monsters tried to hurt Ku-chan, Ku-chan's friends protected her." Minato looked at her with interest. "Oh and where are these friends of yours, Ku-chan." Minato asked and Ku looked at him and then patted the tree she was on. "Ku-chan's friends are the still here." She said and then started to tear up. "But Ku-chan is still alone and scared with her friends." She pressed her head into her knees and started to shake and he could faintly hear sobs.

Minato sighed and then looked at the small child. "Why don't you come down from there?" He asked and Ku looked at him from her red eyes and shook her head. "Come on, I'll catch you." He said and held his arms out to the girl and Ku seemed to hesitate for a moment before leaping into his arms making him take a step back from the sudden weigh of the child as she crashed into him.

He could feel her shake as she sobbed into his chest and he held her close to his chest, he rubbed her back in small circles and tried to calm the girl down. After a moment she calmed down and looked back up at him and he smiled at the girl. "All better, right?" He asked and Ku nodded her head.

"Thank you, Onii-chan." She said and wrapped her arms around his neck and Minato stiffened. He hadn't been called that since he had last seen Yukari, if she were still alive now she'd be what, fifteen, maybe sixteen. He held the girl tighter and they stayed that way for a few moments before Ku began to squirm wanting down.

Minato gently set the girl on the ground and she looked up at him with a small smile. "Thank you, Onii-chan." Minato nodded his head and ruffled her hair affectionately. "Don't mention it." He said and Ku giggled, she then lost her smile and looked behind her before frowning. "Onii-chan, will you come get me? Will you rescue me, Onii-chan?" She asked as her form seemed to move farther away and started to fade. Her arms were outstretched towards him and he reached out to grab one of her hands with his.

"Onii-chan, please help me!" She cried out one last time and Minato desperately wanted to help the girl. He no longer thought of this as a dream rather he thought of this as real as he desperately reached for the child.

**Xx Line Break xX**

Minato awoke suddenly, eyes shooting wide awake and looking everywhere for Ku. She was nowhere in sight, neither was the jungle they had been in. He was back in the apartment with Akitsu kneeling opposite of him, eyes closed in what most likely would be sleep. He looked at himself and patted himself down looking and feeling for any changes or anything the woman might have done while he slept.

Finally satisfied that he was not tampered with in any way he leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. That dream had been far too real for his liking; he could feel the humidity of the jungle, the chirping of bugs, and the pressure of where the girl had crashed into his chest. He opened his eyes and stood up and looked at his watch to see it was eight in the morning. He holstered his pistol that was still in its place in his lap.

He sighed and went about getting something for breakfast out. Looking over at Akitsu he noticed that she was stirring slightly as he ripped open some food packages. "Good to see you're awake, now eat up." He said as he tossed her some ration bars that she ate quickly along with a bottle of water that was quickly downed. "We have a big day today." He said as he finished off his ration bar and packed up everything. Once everything was stowed away and they were both fed, Minato picked up the M4 and strapped it to his back with the backpack going over it.

He held on to his Kar98 and removed the chair from its position at the door and opened it, glancing down the hall he saw nothing that would give them any trouble, and slowly slid out while Akitsu came out behind him before quickly moving to his side where he could keep track of her.

The two people walked down the halls slowly as to avoid making noise or drawing unwanted attention. They eventually found themselves at the bottom floor and watching the doors to the jungle across from them. Looking at Akitsu across from him Minato spoke up. "Think we can find whatever it is this tournament is about inside?" He asked as he motioned towards the jungle. Akitsu nodded her head.

"Ah….yes, most likely, though we may encounter other Sekirei in there, and if the objective in the jungle is a Sekirei we might meet other Ashikabi." Minato nodded his head before walking out into the street while scanning the rooftops.

Akitsu walked next to Minato as they closed in on the gates. They eventually found themselves standing at the doors and Minato looked at Akitsu before turning back to the doors and nudging them open with the tip of his rifles barrel. The door opened revealing a sprawling jungle that was teeming with all sorts of fauna, some of it Minato had never seen or heard of.

The air was thick with moisture due to the humidity of the jungle, long vines filled with leaves stretched up trees covering the trunks and then attaching to other trees through the canopy allowing little to no light through to the forest floor. The path that had once been pristine concrete was now almost invisible due to the vegetation, the lamp posts, benches, and vending stalls were overrun by vines and flowers.

Though there were signs that this was not a place of beauty and serenity in its final days. Piles of sandbags were present in front of Minato and Akitsu and a .50 caliber machine gun sat behind it, a skeleton was draped over the sandbags with the rags of its uniform still attached to it. There were similar positions like this one beyond the one in front of them, and a lot more skeletons were present, all their weapons and munitions were dropped where they died and were untouched.

A military camouflage net was erected in a group of trees; it almost reminded Minato of a spider web seeing as the steel supports were replaced with four large trees. Minato walked forward with his rifle at the ready and he marched up to the pile of sandbags and jumped onto of them before dropping down onto the other side. There were more skeletons covered by the sandbags, and as Minato glanced them over he could see the shoulder patches that identified their allegiances.

There was Japans flag present amongst a greater majority of the skeletons, a few bore the American flag, the Americans were there due to their Military and navy bases in Japan and once the ships had begun attacking they decimated any and all naval vessels that were in the middle of the oceans effectively cutting off trade and transport.

So the Americans that resided in the pacific joined up with the Japanese mainland as best as they could and joined in Japans final stand. Then there were the skeletons that bore the UN's signature flag, the UN forces tried to make it back to their homelands but were cut off as well and so they too were forced into Japans last stand.

So safe to say there was a variety of weapons and equipment lying about, everything from Ak-47's to javelin rockets. Minato nudged the bodies with his boot and watched as they fell to the ground with a clatter of bones, one of the skeletons helmets fell off and rolled across the ground before coming to a stop directly at Akitsu's foot.

Akitsu looked down at the helmet before bending down and picking it up to admire it for a moment, the helmet was an American standard issue with a pair of goggles strapped to the front, the name Lauren was drawn on the side of the helmet in black Sharpe and a few bloodstains marred the helmet along with several cuts.

"Looks like they got hit by gas." Minato said as he bent down to the skeletons and pried at its ammo pouches. Akitsu looked at her master and Minato looked back up at her as he managed to pry a M4 clip from one of the pouches. "They didn't manage to squeeze off a single round, the bodies don't look to have broken bones and they have no gas masks on." Minato stated as he took a satchel from one of the skeletons and began to fill it with various items.

Akitsu looked at the helmet before walking to the sandbags and setting it down. Minato looked at her for a moment before standing back up and strapped the satchel across his chest. "Let's go, I have a feeling that this is going to be a long day." Minato spoke and Akitsu nodded her head before following after Minato as he walked forward deeper into the jungle.

As they walked Akitsu observed her master as he walked, his steps were cautious and soundless, he was always turning his head this way and that looking for anything that was dangerous or useful, his fingers never moved far away from the trigger of his rifle. Akitsu could see why he stayed alive without getting caught for so long. He was cautious, resourceful, clever, silent, and most of all dangerous.

He was armed to the teeth, that much she could vouch for, and he was willing to use any means to kill the enemy, a simple steel pipe her kind would've thought as useless and unimportant was a weapon for Minato. The shadows in the dark her kind disregarded as being too small to hide anything was an ambush, and the weak humans her kind had thought they so thoroughly subjugated were still resistant and willing to fight.

She was knocked out of her thoughts as she watched Minato hold his hand up in a _stop _motion and then drop to the ground in a crouch. He moved forward with Akitsu also dropping to a crouch and following his actions. They stopped at a ledge that had been raised up by something and were kept from being seen by the foliage.

Minato's eyes were trained on something and Akitsu followed her master's gaze and came to the sight of a clearing, about fifty yards away, that was about a hundred yards in length and another hundred in width, it was filled with grass and offered almost nothing in cover. But that wasn't what drew both their attention, no it was the group of Sekirei duking it out in the middle of the field.

Lightning flew across the field and a volley of knives followed along with a blur of green, white, blue and red. It was a skirmish between several groups of Sekirei, about three or four if Minato counted right. A figure dashed across the grassy field and attempted to kick another Sekirei, the target dodged but the kick hit a tree, effectively shattering the tree into splinters.

"Damn it, now we got to find a way around those fucking dumbasses." Minato growled out before settling his rifle on the side of a tree. He scanned the field with a scope and he could make out a Sekirei dressed in a one piece suit white and blue suit, a pair of matching boots, and wielding a blood red lance, she had long green hair and Minato could see her face was set in an expression of delight as she fought.

The one that seemed to be her ally was a woman with a low-cut haircut, a purple and gold leotard, and a pair of knee length boots. She had an expression to the lance wielder as she destroyed the landscape with her kicks.

There were a set of twins with long black hair dressed in matching suits that looked more suited for S&M rather than combat, the only difference he could see between them was the color of their suits. They were throwing lightning bolts across the field and blowing trees apart with their powers.

Then Minato caught sight of another figure in the fray, his blood started to pump and he felt himself get a bit nervous, there standing at the edge of the clearing was a man with grey hair, an orange scarf wrapped around his neck, a black body suit, geta sandals, and holding a sword as he stared at the two groups battling before him.

There were several other Sekirei but only those four caught his attention, especially the last one. The last one was a familiar, and unwanted in Minato's thoughts, face that he had met before. "It's him." Minato stated and Akitsu looked at her master as he gazed at the tree line she also stilled and looked at the man there.

"Ah…Mutsu," She stated and Minato nodded his head.

"You said he left his squad right?" Minato asked, if he had backup nearby and said back up consisted of the squad he was in Minato did not want to tangle with them today.

"Ah….yes." Minato nodded his head with a sense of relief. Minato watched them all fight, except for Mutsu who seemed content to watch and wait, and he began to wonder what the tournaments prize was.

"What do you think, Akitsu?" He asked and Akitsu looked at him for a moment before speaking.

"Ah… what do I think of what, master?" She asked and Minato sighed as she called him master, _again._

"What do you think the objective of this…_tournament_ is?" He asked and Akitsu looked at the fight that was being carried on.

"Ah…most likely land or some form of reputation. Though it looks like they were all heading further into the jungle." She spoke up in her quiet monotone. Minato nodded his head as he backed up slowly with Akitsu following suit.

"We'll find a different route, try to avoid any and all fights, though should we be engaged we'll need to end it quickly." Akitsu nodded her head with nary a sound.

"Ah…understood, my master." Minato sighed, _again, _and kept creeping through the jungles foliage.

"Good, now what are we going to do?" Minato asked himself softly as Akitsu knelt at his side while he crouched with his rifle in hand. He looked around and got frustrated by the amount of trees blocking his sight. He looked at the rifle in his hand before setting it against a tree while Akitsu looked on as he took off the back pack and swapped the M4's place with the kar98.

Minato put the back pack back on over the Kar98 and held the M4 in his grip. Minato pulled the bolt back and chambered a round before flipping the fire rate to full auto. "This should do the trick." He muttered as he stood up slightly before moving deeper into the jungle. "Stay quiet, and follow my orders to the letter, failure to comply…"Minato let the sentence go as he held up the detonator to Akitsu's collar.

"Ah…understood, master." Akitsu spoke and Minato felt an eye twitch. Minato and Akitsu stalked through the forest without a sound, Akitsu was like a shadow of Minato, silent and would never be noticed unless you looked. Minato himself was like the prey turned hunter, silent, watching, and planning. It was like the saying goes _the hunter becomes the hunted _except this time the hunted became the hunters.

As they traveled through the jungle Minato saw things, hallucinations and imaginary things. Ghostly nearly translucent children played and dragged their parents around, a ghostly couple with blank faces walking hand in hand down the concrete paths; he could hear the children's cries of excitement.

_'__Maybe, maybe I'm losing my mind.' _Minato thought to himself as he watched the images change as they headed deeper and deeper into the jungle. The playing children became body bags that lined the edges of the sidewalk, the mothers became mourning people crying over the dead and mutilated bodies of people, the couple became a single person, carrying a gun and blood dotted their ghostly figure.

Shouts echoed around as people dashed back and forth and he could swear he heard the sound of helicopters in the air and the distant sounds of gunfire and explosions. Sirens sounded and as he looked up he could see the canopy of trees become a night sky filled with an orange glow as fires raged and missiles and tracer rounds arced across the sky.

Minato was yanked out of the visions as he felt Akitsu touch his shoulder; he looked at her to see her usual emotionless face in place. "What?" He asked as Akitsu bowed her head.

"Ah…apologies, master," cue the eye twitch, "You stopped and were staring into space for quite some time." He looked at his watch and saw that nearly three hours had passed and it was nearly six in the evening.

"Damn, time flies." He muttered and Akitsu nodded her head. "Thank you, Akitsu." He gave the thanks almost hesitantly and as he watched her reaction he saw her face gain a faint dusting of pink across her cheeks.

"Ah…you're welcome, master." She intoned quietly and Minato's face gained another twitch.

"We need to move." He spoke as he turned around and paused as he saw another apparition before, though this one he could recognize anywhere. There in front of him was Ku watching him with curious eyes.

"Onii-chan?" The girl quietly asked as Minato face palmed.

"What the hell is happening to me?" He asked himself quietly before removing his palm from his face. "Akitsu, do you see anything right there?" He asked pointing towards Ku and Akitsu looked at the spot.

"Ah….I see a little girl." She spoke and Minato nodded his head.

"Just checking." He sighed as he looked at Ku. "Now, I want to say your name is Ku, but right now I think my mind is lost, so just to check, your name is Ku, right?" He asked and Ku smiled as she looked at her Onii-chan.

"Yay!" She gave a little cheer and lunged at Minato, though she just ghosted through him. "Ow." She gave a small sound as she landed on the ground.

_'__Yeah, all I want for Christmas is my mind and a bottle of alcohol strong enough to put me down.' _Minato thought to himself as he sweat dropped at the girl who was now rubbing her behind. "So want to tell me what you are doing here, and in my dream?" He asked and Akitsu looked between the two in a somewhat surprised manner.

"Ah…I think I know the answer, master." She spoke up and Ku looked at Akitsu in wonder, Minato glanced at her and made a _go on _gesture. "Ah…I believe we've found the objective of this tournament." She spoke as she gestured towards the girl and Minato looked between the two several times.

"So…she's a Sekirei?" He asked somewhat hesitantly.

"Ah…yes." Akitsu replied and Minato sighed before lowering his head.

"Onii-chan," He heard that tone before, and he knew he shouldn't look up at the girl, but he did anyways. Ku was looking at him in worry, hopefulness, and confusion. "Onii-chan, you said you'd come get me." She sniffled and tears gathered in her eyes. "Y-y-y-y-you, pr-pr-promised." She stuttered and Minato kind of felt like a dick.

On one hand she was a Sekirei and his sworn enemy, on the other she was a child, she was hindrance, yet he promised to help her. Sighing Minato looked at Ku before straightening up. "And I will." He spoke up and Akitsu stared at her master, while Ku's tears were wiped away by her sleeves. "But I need to know where you are, can you guide us?" He asked and Ku nodded her head as she seemingly disappeared into air particles.

Then came the gut feeling to go straight and Minato followed the feeling and Akitsu fell into step behind him. The feeling guided him and he could tell this was the work of Ku as a sort of GPS guide. Trekking through the jungle further they came upon many sights that surprised Minato, a fuel truck that was still intact and when he knocked on the tank he could tell it still held fuel, there was a troop transport suspended in a tree and covered in moss and vines.

Eventually they came to a stream that had clear water flowing through it and trees and tall grass were on each side of the stream, as they stepped onto the opposite side Minato stopped before turning and pointing his rifle into the trees. "Come out; come out, where ever you are." Minato spoke and Akitsu turned around as well to face the trees as well, after a moment rustling was heard and a person Minato did not want to see was there.

Mutsu stood at the edge of the stream, sword in hand and staring at Minato, Minato leveled his rifle at the Sekirei's chest. "I wondered if you survived our encounter." Mutsu spoke and Minato flipped the safety off the rifle, Mutsu didn't seem to mind at all as he stared at his onetime prey. "You humans surprise me, and I'm sure I'm not the only Sekirei with that opinion, but beside the point I was sure you were dead." Mutsu spoke in an even tone and Minato prepared himself.

"Not for lack of trying." Minato finally spoke and let loose a few rounds, the Sekirei dodged them effortlessly and dashed at Minato intent on knocking him out. Just as he was in striking distance his senses warned him of something and he leapt back as several icicles punctured the ground where he stood, the water around the icicles began to freeze and a mist started to rise up.

"It's surprising to find you in the company of one of my kind; I would have thought you'd gut us without a second thought." Minato fired a spray of bullets and Mutsu dodged as they neared him, then he leapt back into the tree line as a row of icicles pierced the trees.

"Well, I find her to be better company than you and yours any day of the week, Yamamoto Mutsu!" Minato yelled as he started to fire at Mutsu's cover, said Sekirei had widened eyes.

Mutsu leaped to his left and into cover behind a rock, Minato stopped firing to reload his weapon. "How'd you figure out my name?" Mutsu asked as he tried to peak his head over the rock and was forced to duck as an icicle nearly shaved the top of his head off.

"You're smart, at least I think you might be, figure it out yourself!" Minato yelled back and Mutsu watched as a grenade dropped from the sky right next to him.

As he found the grenade Minato turned to Akitsu. "Can you hold him off?" He asked and Akitsu nodded her head as Minato nodded and started to head into the jungle towards Ku and at that moment the grenade went off showering Akitsu and the area in mud and other debris. Mutsu reappeared opposite of Akitsu on the other bank and stared at the discarded number.

"You aren't bonded to him are you?" He asked and Akitsu lowered the scarf around her face and then the hood, revealing her face and the distinguishing mark on her forehead. Mutsu stared impassively at the woman before drawing his sword. "I'm sorry for this; I'll try and make it quick." Mutsu said quietly and Akitsu's impassive face changed into a scowl.

"You will not harm my master." Mutsu was surprised by the hatred in her voice and the hesitated and that brief half a second of hesitation cost him, Mutsu danced backwards as a hailstorm of icicles chased after him, the icicles formed out of thin air seemed endless and unrelenting. Finally he they stopped and he looked to see the snow woman in front of a wall of ice that kept anyone from chasing her master.

"Ah…I'm sorry I'll make this quick, so please die now." She spoke in a monotone and then waved her hand as a wave of frost went after Mutsu and he raised a wall of earth to block it, said earthen wall was frozen solid as the frost hit it.

"This is going to be a long day." Mutsu spoke quietly before preparing to engage the snow woman.

**Xx Line Break xX**

Minato ran through the jungle as the battle between Akitsu and Mutsu raged on. He could feel the cold behind him as the forest froze; he leaped over a fallen log and continued to cut through the jungle, the feeling in his gut urging him in a certain direction.

He entered a glade and the feeling in his gut disappeared. Looking around he eventually found a mass of roots that overlapped and formed a shelter, it was impressive, though that was not what drew his attention. No rather it was the bundle of straw blond hair on the ground. Minato walked up to the bundle and kneeled down, with the butt of the M4 resting on the ground, and he gently shook the bundle.

"Ku, Ku, it's time to wake up." Minato whispered and eventually the bundle shifter and sat up revealing Ku as she rubbed her eyes and then they landed on Minato.

"Onii-chan," She murmured, and then her eyes widened and she was awake. "Onii-chan!" She shouted, and with that outcry she leapt at Minato and crashed into his chest.

"Hey, hey, now. I'm right here, now we need to go." Minato spoke to the girl; said girl nodded her head and stepped back from him. As if to punctuate his last statement an explosion rang out and looking behind him at the direction he noticed it was near where he left Akitsu and Mutsu and a geyser of earth was shooting into the sky.

"Like right now." Minato stood up and held his rifle, and turned to leave before he paused. Right across from them was a woman dressed in a dress, she had a scythe in her hands, she had brown hair tied with a red ribbon and she seemed to find something amusing.

"I couldn't have said it better myself." The woman spoke up and as Minato studied her he spotted the Sekirei crest on the crimson blade of her scythe.

"Fuck my life." Minato muttered and pointed his weapon at the woman. She laughed at Minato and Ku seemed to shiver as she clutched his leg.

"Aw, that's adorable, what are you going to do, throw that at me?" She asked and Minato raised an eye behind his mask. _'__Maybe she doesn't know what a gun is.' _He thought to himself and decided to humor her.

"No, I expect to kill you, now please run along and pretend we never saw each other." Minato said in an even tone and the Sekirei sneered.

"An Ashikabi bossing a Sekirei around, that's adorable. Now my master wants that girl so if you'd stand aside." Minato looked between Ku and the woman before sighing and hanging his head, his weapon lowered.

The woman smirked and began to walk forward while Ku had tears in her eyes and seemed to curl in on herself. "My life really sucks." With that sentence spoke Minato's weapon raised itself fast and the woman had barely a moment to blink before a hail of lead sped towards her and her eyes widened as she leapt away.

Minato let off the trigger long enough to aim at her again and he let off another burst of gunfire forcing the Sekirei to leap away; again and again this happened until Minato had to reload. _Click _Minato looked at his weapon before hitting the switch to drop the spent clip and attempted to insert another one.

He attempted to because as soon as the gunfire stopped the Sekirei did as well and looking at Minato she grinned as she watched him try to place another clip in the weapon, and she sped towards him, as she was near him he dropped the rifle and pulled out one of his many combat knives.

The Sekirei tried to swing her scythe at Minato and Minato ducked, barely managing to dodge the weapon, he rose back up and attempted to slash the Sekirei across her midriff, the Sekirei jumped back and watched Minato with a growing grin. Minato shrugged off his pack and looked back at Ku. "Keep out of this." Minato said before looking at the Sekirei.

The Sekirei smiled at him, a cruel smile filled with malicious intent, and Minato readied his knife in his left hand. His right was at his side, the fingers twitching and behind his mask his face was blank. "Well, I'll say this much, you definitely aren't a Sekirei, so just what are you?" The Sekirei asked and Minato remained silent.

"No comment, well I can always beat it out of you, my name's Yomi, and I'll be your executioner tonight." She exclaimed happily before dashing at Minato, _fast, _Minato had barely a moment before ducking down to dodge a slash that would've taken his head off, he moved up wards and attempted to slash Yomi from naval to neck. Yomi leaned back and took a step back.

She attempted to retaliate and tried to use the end of her scythes staff to jab Minato in the chest, Minato moved it to his left and spun to his right concealing his body behind the tail of his coat. Yomi had a smile on her face as she watched the stranger; he was an interesting one, no Sekirei but still interesting.

That smile turned into a look of shock as Minato spun to face her, barely foot in front of her face and he held his nine millimeter Minebea pistol, the hammer pulled back and the safety off. Minato fired off a round and Yomi moved her head to the side, and Minato had time to pull another round off, Yomi's face turned into a smile and she backhanded Minato away.

"I'm done playing." With that said she sped over to him before he could stand up fully and kicked him in his chest sending him into a tree. Minato slammed into the tree and his knife dropped to the ground while he still held his pistol, as his feet hit the ground he took aim at Yomi and squeezed off four more shots, each one being dodged. Yomi kept on smiling as she twirled about and dodged each shot without much effort.

Minato stood and emptied his clip as he tried to predict where Yomi would step, she dodged them all, and as he dropped the spent clip Yomi appeared in front of him and slammed him back into the tree using the butt of her staff and as he felt blood start to leak out of his mouth her hand latched onto his throat. "Well, why it was amusing watching you struggle I think it's time I ended this, don't you agree?"

She asked this while she slid her scythes blade behind Minato and rested the blade against the back of his neck, so if she pulled she would decapitate him. Minato behind his mask grimaced and raised his right arm as if to punch her in the ribs. "Oh, that's adorable; you think you still have a chance." She spoke with a snarky tone and Minato couldn't help but chuckle. "What's so funny, are you one of those people who find death amusing?"

Minato shook his head before saying one word. "Checkmate." And with that one word he clenched his right fist and a blade slid out from beneath the coats sleeves, the blade was nearly a foot and a half in length and looked very sharp, Minato jammed the blade into Yomi's side and said Sekirei jerked back a bit then looked down at where Minato's blade was placed in her side.

Minato pushed the blade further into her side and Yomi gasped as she released her blade and his neck as she coughed up blood, Minato's left hand gripped her shoulder and held her in place as he slid his blade out of the wound then shoved it through her chest right through her heart, Yomi gasped and coughed up more and more blood, Minato kept stabbing her over and over all over her chest.

Finally he planted the blade in her naval and then ripped it up to her neck and ripped out her throat with the blade, spraying blood all over his front. Yomi stumbled back, her face covered in her own blood and her eyes losing their light as she stumbled backwards before falling straight back and stayed there in a growing pool of her own blood. Minato clenched his fist again and the blade disappeared back under the sleeves of his coat.

As Minato stared down at the woman he could see that her torso looked more like hamburger meat than anything at the moment and she was literally covered in her own blood. Minato flipped her over and knelt down to examine the back of her neck, there was a Sekirei crest, the same one that Akitsu had, except that this one was in black ink instead of red. Reaching into his coat he pulled out another one of his knives and stabbed her right in the middle of her crest, she shuddered and then the crest began to vanish, like ink being washed away, Minato left the knife stuck in the Sekirei's neck before standing and looking over at where Ku was.

She was kneeling and covering her eyes as she whimpered. Minato picked up his pistol and knife he had dropped before grabbing his rifle and pack; finally he stood in front of the young Sekirei and stared down at her huddled form. "Hey, we need to go now." Minato spoke and Ku stilled before looking up and flinching at him, he looked down and noticed he was covered, literally covered, in Sekirei blood. He looked back at Ku and held out a bloody hand.

"Come with me, or stay here and go with people like her. Those are your options." Ku seemed hesitant and after a moment gently took his hand. Minato pulled her to her feet and noticed her feet were bare and covered in mud, dirt, and had taken a green color, like grass stains. "You need a pair of shoes." Minato spoke plainly and Ku looked at Minato questioningly.

"Never mind." Minato said and Ku simply clutched his hand tighter. Minato after putting a new clip into the M4 picked up the empty magazines and stuffed them into a separate pouch, at Ku's questioning look Minato explained. "Clips are getting hard to come by, need to keep stocked up on them, just in case."

Minato took Ku's hand into his and began to lead the way out of the clearing and together they left the dead body on the forest floor, once more Minato was swallowed into the dense mass of trees, vines, and overall green environment. Even as she held onto him Ku was having a little bit of trouble making out his form. Eventually Minato stopped before letting go of Ku's hand and using his now free hand to steady his rifle as he raised it up.

Akitsu appeared before the two, Minato sighed before lowering his rifle and taking in the form of the snow woman. He was surprised by the fact she had survived against Mutsu, his highest expectations were for her to defeat Mutsu and be wounded enough to not be able to follow, and yet here she was, battered, bruised and cut up but still able to find him and follow him.

Akitsu's clothes were shredded up, her hood was torn off leaving a piece of shredded black cloth fluttering in the wind, her scarf was tucked into her jacket now and seemed a bit shorter, her jacket had gashes through it, the entire left arm of the jacket was nearly torn off it was barely held together by a patch of cloth, a cut went along her midriff and he could see very faint traces of blood along the edge. Her hair was dirty and had a few clumps of mud in it, her face was smeared with dirt and she bore a few cuts on her cheeks.

Her pants were extremely dirty and seemed more slashed up than the rest of her, Minato sighed, the pants would look more like a patch work quilt if he had to stitch it back up. Though her shoes were untouched, though a few mud stains were here and there, on the end of her right foot was a blood stain like she had kicked something hard enough to make whatever she kicked bleed.

"So," Minato began and Akitsu looked up at Minato, "Should I even ask about the other guy?" He asked and Akitsu tilted her head questioningly, this caused Minato to sigh and rub his covered face. "Can I assume that Mutsu won't be a problem any time soon?" Akitsu tilted her head back into place before speaking.

"Ah…yes, I incapacitated him, master." She spoke and Minato sighed again.

"Details, details." He motioned towards her and she nodded her head as she fell into place besides Minato.

"Ah…I stabbed him in the gut with an icicle before pinning him to a rock by his hands using icicles and left him there without his sword." Minato tilted his head and wondered how the snow woman managed that before shrugging.

"Ah…master is that your blood?" Akitsu asked and Minato looked at his blood covered front and shook his head. "No, it's from a…._troublesome _person, who will no longer be of any consequence." He spoke and Akitsu paused before nodding her head, her master had been covered in blood and she was worried her master was hurt.

"Let's go before we run into more…._unwelcomed _guests." He emphasized on unwelcomed before walking forward, Ku took his left hand while Akitsu watched the little girl, hesitantly Akitsu held onto Minato's jacket. Behind his mask Minato had twitching eyebrows and was silently counting down from ten.

"What….are you two doing?" He asked and Akitsu and Ku looked at one another before looking back at Minato.

"Ah….making sure to keep master safe." Akitsu surprisingly spoke first.

"Ku-chan doesn't want her Onii-chan to leave." Minato at that moment felt like bashing his head in.

"Of course I get stuck with the two needy and holdy feely types, I bet the psychotic one isn't this grabby." He murmured to himself.

In the city to the north a certain sword wielding grey haired woman sneezed, she brushed it off as someone talking about her before sharpening her blade.

Minato sighed before continuing on. "I'll….allow it, but if we get wrapped up in a fight I'll need to be able to move, can I trust you two to take care of yourselves or do I need to hold your hand through all this like you're a bunch of baby's." He asked and Ku pouted while Akitsu nodded her head.

"Ah…thank you master." She intoned quietly before her hold intensified.

"Ku-chan is grown up!" Ku proclaimed and Minato spun around before putting a hand over her mouth. Ku's eyes were wide and she watched as Minato looked every direction before speaking up in a near whisper.

"Not so loud, _they _will hear us; we don't want _them _to hear us."

Ku nodded her head before Minato removed his hand and stood up and continued on with both the Sekirei holding onto him. Eventually the trio made it to a clearing where Minato had seen a fuel truck, as they were about to leave Minato stopped and turned to face the fuel truck. "Akitsu, take Ku across the street and wait for me there, I have a small task to do before we leave." He spoke not even turning to the two Sekirei.

Akitsu nodded her head as she and Ku both released their holds on Minato, Ku more reluctantly than Akitsu. Akitsu grabbed her juniors hand in hers and began to move towards the exit of the botanical gardens and the jungle itself.

Minato, once the two Sekirei were gone walked up to the fuel truck, more specifically the fuel nozzles, and turned the valve to open the nozzles, but not a drop of fuel came out. "Damn, must be clogged." Minato cursed before raising his rifle and using the rifles butt to break open the fuel nozzles, after a few well-placed hits the nozzles popped off and gasoline started to flow out in a flood.

"Well, good news is that we have the gasoline, now what to light it with, but not be caught in the blast at the same time?" He asked himself as he looked around before digging in his pockets. He pulled out a detonator and a small cube of C4 a little bit that was reserved for emergencies. The cube was about half the size of a rubrics cube and was easily concealable.

Minato set the charge on the side of the fuel tank and armed said explosive. Minato started to jog across the area and as he moved he noticed the gasoline had spread over the area and was already among tall grasses and the trees. Minato exited the botanical gardens and spied Akitsu and Ku across the street next to a hotel. The day light sky had been exchanged for the plethora of colors that accompany the twilight of the world. Purple and gold colors covered the entire horizon of the setting sun.

Minato jogged next to Akitsu and Ku and held the detonator to the C4 in his right hand. "Let's go, the shows about to start." Akitsu nodded and stood by his side while Ku took his left hand in hers. He led them away from the gardens, and behind his mask a smile bloomed. "And here. We. Go." He stated in a whisper and pressed the detonator.


End file.
